FIFTY children and five teachers from Thornley went to Weardale House for a weekend.

We tried rope activities, skiing, canoeing, rock climbing and gorge walking. The rope activities were very scary and exciting - the trapezium involved climbing up a large tree to reach a platform, jumping off the platform and trying to catch a metal bar suspended from the tree.

The catwalk was equally challenging. You had to climb up a tree, walk across a tree trunk suspended between two trees, walk back to the middle, sit down and hang upside down holding on to the trunk with your legs.

Most of us had never skied before and it felt very strange wearing skis, because they were fastened tightly around your ankles, which made it difficult to bend down to pick things up or to walk easily.

Some of us found it difficult to ski without failing over at first and it was difficult to get up without help.

Rock climbing was a challenging activity. We wore safety harnesses when we climbed. The first cliff we climbed had rocks jutting out of it, so it was quite easy to find footholds to help you to reach the top. However, the uneven face made it difficult to abseil down. The face of the second cliff was much straighter, which made it more difficult to climb, but it was easier to abseil down.

Gorge walking was great fun, although very wet. We had to walk through a river. When you first get in it is cold, but you soon feel much warmer. We had great fun going down the waterfalls, which were just like the slides at the swimming baths.

We had a brilliant time - des-pite the midges.