Greetings from California June 29, 2006
Posted by Mark Tennant in : personal , add a commentWell folks, we finally made it to California on the 2006 “Following in John Muir’s Footsteps” trip.
I’m not going to say too much on my own weblog, as we have a seperate one set up, which Alice is maintaining each day. You can view it here .
Suffice to say, having a great time. Weather is fantastic, John Muir House was very interesting, and Santa Cruz fun! The staff are off on a little visit to the Napa Valley tomorrow to sample the local ‘refreshments’. Wish me Luck! We leave for Yosemite on Friday morning, and with the recent landslide on HW140 it promises to be a long journey around the detour!
Tweed Valley MRT Mountain Challenge June 15, 2006
Posted by Mark Tennant in : Dunbar Grammar, Mountain Rescue , add a comment
I meant to blog this the day after it all happened, but as per the last post, just been too busy!
Every year,
Tweed Valley MRT (
our nice neighbours) hold a 24 hour Mountain Challenge, and boy is it challenging: 40 miles, 10,000ft ascent. Ouch. Anyway, I’ve completed it for the last two years (21 hours 2005, 18 hours 2006 … 2007?). What really impressed me however were theat no less than five former pupils of DGS took part this year: Andrew Maddox, Steven Low, Ben Mincher, Ian Thompson and David Bower.
The five pupils have no doubt raised hundreds of pounds for a very good cause, and are a credit to Dunbar Grammar - well done lads. Only two managed to finish the challenge, but all five done very well, in fact they all got further than even I honestly expected.
My personal highlight of the challenge was meeting up with a nice fellow from Duns, who would become part of the challenge folklore. Half way round, he lost his ankles. they just disolved, vanished, disappeared in a large pool of blood. No joke, they were the worst I’d ever seen since I managed to hospitalise myself breaking in a new pair of boots by trekking across two munros! (note to self - bad idea). I had to patch them up on the hill - only half way round remember - using the only first aid kit I had - two wound dressings and a flask of 12 year old Glenfiddich. Amazingly, he finished the walk! Certainly a braver man than me!
Anyway, I’ll leave you with a couple of photos from the walk: The ankle-less man, and four of our former pupils at the finish line, proping themselves up against the first thing to hand!!
Busy Time! June 15, 2006
Posted by Mark Tennant in : Dunbar Grammar, personal , add a commentWell, what a shock I got today: I was aware the weblog was slipping as the end of term starts to get hectic, but I just had a quick look and seen that it was actually April when I last posted! So much for ‘at least once a week’ that I had aimed for when I started this. Oh well…
Of course, one of the main reasons things are getting busy, is that I am off to Yosemite in just over a weeks time - along with 3 great colleagues (name checks for Gillian Williams, Alice Clubb, and Ciaran Earle) and 21 students. It’s an experience I am certainly looking forward to, as I know the pupils are. Now that we are all in the process of packing it has just started to dawn on me how close it actually is! It’s quite inspiring to talk to people like Gillian who were on the trip two years ago and see how many good memories they have of Yosemite, Martinez and San Fran. Speaking to
Don Ledingham too, it was so obvious how much he enjoyed Yosemite Valley in particular. Don’t worry Don - I’ll have my camera and be up at the crack of dawn too :-)
Anyway, you can follow our progress at the weblog Alice has set up for the trip. I’m sure it will be a fantastic experience for both staff and pupils’ a real trip of a lifetime for many of them.