We have returned from our epic charity adventure!
So far we are over half way towards our fundraising target, which is brilliant as we still have some cash to add to the Justgiving page. So here's a summary of the weekend:
On friday, we all met up at the ferry terminal with our tents, bags, boards etc... bright and early (about 11am)
And then it was all aboard the ferry, and the race to get to Ryde pier in time for a photoshoot began!
straight off the ferry there was what seemed like a neverending uphill stretch of road followed by several others, everyone getting lost and separated and the van hire company claiming they'd never heard of us. A slightly rocky start to the weekend, but all was fine and dandy when the support team arrived victorious at Ryde in a slightly less than ideal condition van... We got some photos for the papers and the team went on it's way to the next destination...
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| lost! |
The campsite for the night was quite a way away, up some insanely steep country roads, and then along the seafront for a few relaxed miles. After stopping to skate the hairpin by the seafront which every town on the island seems to have, we found the campsite (which had it's own roads) and pitched our tents in some strange places...
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| Josh in a tent on a van |
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| Tent in a tent |
After the tent shenanigans, we went and ate in the pub and got a surprisingly early night... The next day we went for breakfast, and more route planning ahead of the longest distance of the weekend.
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| Louise, Tim and Matt at breakfast |
We set off from the first campsite aiming to reach the needles by the end of the day, we started by climbing up another great big hill... this one was followed by a brilliant stretch of downhill with some nice corners thrown in that we were all far too busy skating really fast down to take photos of...
We eventually reached the next town we planned to stop at, which was ventnor. We knew ventnor had some ridiculous hills, but they still surprised us on the way in and out of the town... Our favorite was this:
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| Monaco |
Sadly, at this point, my camera decided to run out of memory. There's more footage and pictures of the event to come soon...
We left Ventnor towards a place called Freshwater, and along the way skated up and down some amazing roads, some of which were up to 2 miles of downhill... stopped for lunch in a tiny sleepy village and battled onwards to freshwater, where we all went in the sea!
We stayed at a small campsite on the side of a hill near Freshwater, where we were greeted with a sign saying:
"To the skateboarding firefighters, please pitch your tents anywhere you like"Enthused by our new skill of fighting fire, we pitched our tents and went to the pub. We decided that it would be a good idea to go back to the campsite and order a takeaway, which went terribly, but it was all OK because we had a few jerry cans full of cider.
On the third and final day of our trip, we set off for Cowes again. We had to get back in time to drop the hire van off so somewhere along the line in a place called Yarmouth we fuelled up with a huge breakfast, which set us going along the final stretch of the journey (up and down some more huge hills) and along the seafront at the end to get a victory ice-cream.
I'd like to say a great big thank you to everyone who got involved, to the skaters: Tim, Tom, Pete, Moe, Josh, Sam, Matt, Dan, Danny, and of course to the support team Louise and Charley.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight air ambulance fundraising team have been really supportive of us, and I hope we have a chance to do more for them in the future.
Also big thanks to you if you donated towards the charity, you all made it worthwhile.
Jon
