Friday 16th July - 8:00am, Muškovci

Yesterday morning we all got up and Jacob and I made breakfast. We then made sandwiches and got shouted at by some of the others for being slightly late. It wasn’t our fault though because people were late turning up for breakfast so we couldn’t just get on with lunch until breakfast was totally over. When the bus arrived it was playing Misery by Maroon 5 which cheered up my morning and although I probably shouldn’t have, I stuck around by it until the song was over. We then kayaked down (up?) the Zrmanja River and also to the River Krupa. We stopped for lunch by a beautiful waterfall but there was a problem with the lunch because a barrel containing half of the sandwiches and the crisps hadn’t been brought on a kayak so some people didn’t get sandwiches. Margaret annoyed me again because she ate Joe’s sandwich then tried to tell me that I’d told her to so I was really unimpressed by her. Thankfully, someone from the kayak trip behind us had spotted the barrel, brought it and given it to Slaven so I could hand out the sandwiches about 20 minutes later. I was with Jacob in a kayak and the first part of the journey was relatively smooth however we managed to capsize twice within five minutes during the second part of the journey. Basically, Jemma and Catherine hit a tree and were hanging out of their kayak and even though Jacob paddled backwards, our kayak drifted and hit them. They ended up staying in the kayak and Jacob and I ended up underneath ours. I managed not to panic much but it was hard lifting it off me. It was pretty horrible considering I’m scared of being plunged into water and I ended up having to grip Miss Morris and Mr Parkinson’s kayak while Margaret pulled me back into mine and Jacob’s. My life jacket (that did absolutely nothing to help me float at all…) got stuck though so Joe had to jump out of his kayak and help me again which I was really thankful for. We then capsized again when we hit Chris and Sam who got stuck at the top of a small rapid and again, we ended up in the water and they stayed in their kayak. It was funnier this time though because I ended up just standing on a rock laughing and I think even Slaven was amused by it this time.

We arrived at the campsite relatively quickly so people just relaxed for a few hours in the water and around the table. Most people went jumping off the big waterfall but I stayed at the campsite and bathed my leg in the water because it was stinging from when the boat capsized for the first time and I scraped it on several rocks. Margaret decided to have a go at me because I moved all of the barrels except two - because the other two had belongings on so I didn’t want to move belongings too - and apparently “all of the barrels had to be moved as soon as we arrived” which nobody had actually told us.

Jacob and I cooked tea and I kind of lost the will to live at several points because he had problems cooking the soup (though it was Jacob who was supposed to be doing that anyway...) We also had problems with the spaghetti because our water source is 20 minutes away so everything was slow. Natalie helped calm me down when I was starting to get upset by it all. Some people said they liked it and Miss Morris said it was the best meal we’ve had so hopefully it was worth it. I was proud of myself for cooking from scratch considering the circumstances.

After dinner we discussed what we’ve learnt about ourselves while we’ve been here. I realised that I’ve actually learnt a lot and I feel like I’ve faced a lot of fears that I didn’t think I’d face. I challenged myself with the trekking, kayaking and staying away from home and I feel like I’ve grown in confidence. We also talked about how I was the only girl from my year and Miss Morris talked about how I’ve probably come on the biggest journey because of it.

We all toasted marshmallows around the campfire last night and Slaven played his guitar for a few hours. It was genuinely one of those moments where there was nowhere else I would prefer to be. It made me realise that I’d kind of fallen in love with the idea of a campfire. Today we’re kayaking then going back to the Starigrad campsite then going sightseeing then out for our group meal.

Wednesday 14th July - 10:31pm, Kaštel Žegarski

Breakfast at the hut this morning was rubbish. Most other people had beanfeast Bolognese but I had a breakfast bar I had leftover from yesterday. I was packed and organised pretty quickly so I had enough time to chill out and just do nothing for a while. Catherine didn’t want her Bolognese so Sam made her eat a bit of a pine cone which was hilarious. I bought three bookmarks for mum, dad and Jude from the stall outside the hut as well.

I walked really well today and didn’t cry or panic at all. Margaret had us playing an aeroplane game before we set off where she sketched a plane on the ground and we had to stand either in the engine, wings, passenger or luggage depending on how we felt we were within the group. I stood between passenger and luggage but Louis said I should be in the engine because of how I got on with it the best I could. It was nice of Louis to say it because it made me believe that I hadn’t just annoyed people which I thought I had and it definitely gave me confidence. I only stopped for stuff like laces or if others stopped too. I was often ahead of others and walking quickly. It was almost a good thing that I struggled so much on the way up because I hadn’t paid attention to the surroundings at all and so the walk down was refreshing and I got to enjoy the sight much more than the others did. When we were walking down one of the parts towards the end, a German woman behind us slipped over and was screaming in pain so me, Jemma, Catherine and Jacob stopped and Catherine went back to see if anybody needed a phone because we could’ve got the satellite phone from Margaret. The man with her who spoke English said they were fine thanks and he rushed off down to get mountain rescue. We met up with everybody else at the shop and chilled out for a while and had ice creams. I bought a bracelet, pens and a keyring.

On the final stretch of path, I was walking with Jacob when we came across Catherine, Jemma and Sam. Jemma said that Catherine was close to fainting and I knew that Jacob felt ill, Sam had already tried to find Margaret and it was impractical for Jemma to go on ahead with her diabetes so I walked on ahead and pushed on hard to the group. It was mostly in the sun with minimal shade and I had no map and my huge bag so it was really tough but I just kept thinking about Catherine and kept going with only two really brief stops for water. There was one point where I could have turned three different ways so I had to just guess and thankfully I picked the right way. I made the journey in about 20 minutes which I’m pretty sure was really good considering. When I reached the group and told them what was happening, Louis and Joe rushed off and ran to them and Miss Morris and Jasmine went off with rehydration sachets. Slaven went off too. I was really disappointed in Margaret because she didn’t even look at me or move when I explained the problem - even though that’s her job as team leader. Ugh! Jacob wants to complain about her, I'm not surprised really...

When we got back to the Starigrad campsite I had to do the shopping with Izzy, Chris, Natalie and Jacob and we got loads of food and stuff that we needed such as cooking equipment. We had way too much food so Jacob and I had to put some back and I think the woman at the till guessed that we were stressed and she knocked some money off the shopping so that we didn’t have to go into Friday’s budget which we would have had to do.

We then got on the buses to the wild campsite. I was on a bus with Jemma, Lauren, Shannon, Jacob, Sam and Margaret and it was a fun journey. Margaret slept for the journey so she stayed out of our fun which I was also glad about. We all had a laugh which was nice because we hadn’t really been doing that.

We’re now at the wild campsite and are going river kayaking tomorrow and will be moving to another new campsite for the evening. At the moment I’m sat round the campfire with Lauren, Chris, Jacob, Jemma, Joe, Oliver and Shannon and I’m listening to my iPod while Joe is killing ants and Shannon is trying to carve her name into the bench. Natalie has been throwing up all evening so I ended up helping her and Chris with tea because she didn’t do much. Margaret left us to it this evening so Izzy led the meeting and it was much more relaxed without her there. Catherine can’t sleep because Jasmine’s bag has leaked and her stuff is wet. Everybody seems to be getting along well and mum sent me a text saying “Dad says you are a star” after I texted them about the Catherine thing. We have proper toilets here which we haven’t had at the mountain hut so people are in a better mood about that. I’m glad we do because the toilets at the hut were never clean and the smell made people feel sick towards the end.

Tuesday 13th July - 7:25pm, Mountain hut

I was on a top bunk last night and only Miss Morris and Margaret were as well so it was almost the exact opposite of sleeping in a tent. I was also almost on a proper bed which was a bonus. I woke up one of the earliest so I had chance to gather my thoughts before everybody else got up. I had a horrible chocolate and banana flapjack for breakfast because we were low on breakfast. Never liked banana...

We went trekking up a mountain earlier and I struggled at first but I was definitely better than yesterday although Margaret threatened me with flying home because I asked to stop and open my water bottle. How pathetic is that?! Her attitude towards our team is getting on my nerves so much, she seems to just dislike us a lot. Joe was really supportive this morning and most of the group were amazing. He even made me let him carry my bag for part of the way because he wanted me to be able to get up the mountain. Unlike Margaret, he encouraged me but also made it clear I needed to get on with it, Margaret just tended to shout at me and she wasn’t nice at all. I’m accountant tomorrow with Sam. We had pasta for tea and I got a wash in the stream near the hut. Normally, I’d never do that anywhere…but being here it just felt normal. I went with Catherine and Jemma and literally stood in a stream in my underwear and got washed even though Joe, Oliver and Louis were around somewhere making a dam. I don’t know why but I just didn’t care and it was really liberating.

Slaven has been keeping us sane and entertained - he’s definitely part of our group now and there’s just something about him that draws people to him. He always has really interesting stories to tell and listens to everything we say to him in a way that Margaret doesn’t seem to. I’m chef with Jacob on Thursday and I’m looking forward to having some responsibility because I’ve really missed it to be honest. At the moment I’m sat at a bench with Chris, Sam, Lauren and Jemma discussing the accounting and telling random stories. We’re also moaning and just getting our thoughts out and offloading what’s bothering us. I quite like that we’re doing it because I’ve missed just talking to people like this over the past day or two.

Monday 12th July - 9:15pm, Planinarski Dom mountain hut

Yesterday when we got up we had some breakfast (cornflakes) then headed out kayaking. Slaven showed us what to do and I was steering the kayak. I was in with Shannon. She tended to nag me a lot at first which annoyed me but she calmed down after a while and I enjoyed it. I suppose we were both trying to get used to it so it wasn't a big deal. I also think that I was reasonably good at it considering I’ve never done anything like it before at all. We kayaked to the mouth of the Zrmanja River then relaxed there for a few hours. It was boiling hot so we just sat around then went in the water. Izzy had never learnt to swim but she was really brave and she even jumped in from quite a height so everybody was really proud of her. Sam was our team leader and he did a really good job. Some people were saying he didn’t but I thought he did. When we kayaked back I was with Oliver and it was much more relaxed than the journey there. Everybody decided they wanted to swap kayak partners which was fair enough but I felt that the pairings reflected the fact that I was the only girl in my year when I was left without a partner and so was Oliver. I didn’t mind though because I didn’t get nagged by him and we worked well as a team. When we got back we all had showers then packed up the tents and got on coaches to the new campsite at Starigrad. Once we got there, we put tents up and Lauren and Izzy made tea. We had pasta with dolmio sauce. I got a good night’s sleep last night which I was so thankful for. There was an incident with Margaret though. The campsite is full of ants so Joe said we shouldn’t leave any food out at all. With that in mind, Margaret decided to leave the cornflakes out so they got wasted. Ugh.

This morning we were really unorganised but I had watermelon for breakfast which is probably the best food I could have had. We had to dump the stuff we didn’t need and locked it in a room in the campsite reception. We filled our day sacks and put them inside the big sacks. We trekked about 5.5 miles and I really struggled. I’m pretty convinced that I had at least 5 panic attacks whilst trying to climb the first third and I was literally in tears and crying that I couldn’t do it for the most part of that. Margaret had to walk me up. I was also very dehydrated though which gave me breathing problems which is probably where the panicking came from and Margaret made me stop and drink a full litre of water before making me wet my head under a tap in the village at the entrance to the national park. She kept telling me a story about the tree we were standing underneath which began to really grate on me. Slaven came back to see if I was alright which I thought was nice of him but was probably also his job...

Jacob stuck with me for most of the way which really surprised me. He made me laugh during the last third of the journey and kept my spirits up so I owe him a lot. When we finally got to the mountain hut, everybody had already been there ages and they all clapped for us which was lovely of them and made me feel like I could finally relax and that people weren’t mad at me which I thought they might have been. We relaxed for a while and Catherine and Sam made tea. We had the same as last night to eat. Currently, I’m sitting at a big bench outside of the hut with Jacob, Izzy, Jemma, Lauren, Jasmine, Louis, Joe, Slaven and Miss Morris. This evening has been really good, people have just been chatting and we’ve acted like a proper team today which has been nice. My role today was safety which I didn’t think I did well at considering the circumstances but Margaret told me that by having to walk slowly, I was making others walk slowly which was a good safety aspect.

Sunday 11th July - 6:08am, Novigrad campsite, Croatia

When we finally arrived here in Croatia, we queued up for passport control where I got my passport stamped (yay!) We collected our baggage but mine and Natalie’s sleeping mats were missing and Louis’ bag was too. Joe and a few others immediately started ranting at us about it and telling me and Natalie not to mention the fact that our mats had gone missing which really annoyed me because he had no right to say that and I was allowed to be annoyed about it. I didn’t mention it much anyway because Louis was trying to find out about his bag and I was just staying out of the way of Joe who was in a pretty bad mood. I figured it wasn't very important to report a lost sleeping mat anyway. Our tour guide tried to sort out Louis' bag but it was still in Heathrow so he arranged for it to be put on the next flight over. Miss Morris told me that we’d be stopping at a supermarket where we’d probably be able to buy new sleeping mats anyway so I got over it pretty quickly. Once we’d sorted out the problems we changed some money and got on the coach - this time also accompanied by our tour guide Slaven. I was also a bit annoyed that people who hadn’t had any problems happen to them were in a worse mood than people that had and kept trying to start stupid arguments in the airport and for a while on the coach. It was a relief to sit by myself next to the window and just drift into my own world for a while to relax and ignore the people arguing behind me.

Those sorting out the shopping list called me over because apparently they needed my input because I’m vegetarian. I gave my input but they wouldn’t let me sit back down so I had to sit through a ridiculous amount of arguing before I just gave up and moved back to my seat regardless. We stopped off at a supermarket called Plodine to buy food for Saturday and Sunday where Natalie and I went to get sleeping mats (mine’s pink) and we all then sat outside and waited while the others argued their way around the supermarket and took forever even though they had a shopping list. I tried talking to Margaret in the supermarket but she seems really unreluctant to talk to any of us at all really. We then arrived at our campsite about half an hour later. We spent forever putting up tents while Jasmine and Louis made us tea. It only took us so long because we were in the dark due to our delayed flight and the amount of time spent at the supermarket. We were also all annoyed because some tent parts were missing (and in Louis’ bag…) and Margaret told us we had to put up the teachers’ tents too which we hadn’t expected and it didn’t seem fair - after all, we didn’t sign up to be slaves. After tea we had a group meeting (led by Margaret) and talked about jobs and similar stuff and I’m timekeeper for tomorrow (today technically). I got a bit upset before the meeting because I was just generally fed up and everybody was on edge…as well as the fact that I’d lost my mat and it just messed up the day a bit. If I slept last night, it must have only been for an hour or so. I was squashed in between Lauren and Natalie. Lauren kept saying stuff in her sleep everytime I moved and Natalie had her knee in my back. Lovely. Miss Morris had to put a bag next to our tent and it meant that I didn’t even fit properly in the tent. Great fun. Shannon, Izzy and some of the others went down to the beach in the evening and picked up 3 stalkers who came throwing stones at the tents so Miss Morris sat outside on watch for them, so nobody slept much then either.

Saturday 10th July - 1:30pm, plane to Croatia

We finally arrived in London at about 8:15pm yesterday. We also met a man in a World Challenge jeep who dropped off some kit we hadn’t received. We then went up to our rooms to look around and dump our bags. I was in room 27 on floor 2. I really didn’t manage to work the keys properly though. The one for my room door worked but the one for the corridor didn’t work at all. Shannon was next door in 26 and Jas was in 28. We all then went outside and had a meeting while sitting on the grass. Margaret divided up what we needed to do for our roles. Lauren, Izzy and Jemma went to work out which bus we needed to catch this morning while I went with Natalie to figure out who was in which room. Her and Jacob had to figure out fire escapes and stuff like that. Louis and Jasmine found somewhere to get tea.

There was a slight incident when the boys and Jasmine went to get their food without anyone knowing where they’d gone. The boys didn't seem bothered about the fact that some people hadn't eaten, but Jasmine seemed really upset that she hadn't realised. I think so far, this is the only thing that's happened to annoy people slightly. It was all sorted pretty easily though, although we did get told that we couldn't eat inside the actual restaurant so we had to stand outside.

When we got back to our rooms all us girls ended up hanging out in Lauren’s room and it was nice to just talk and get to know each other. I expected that we would feel awkward but we didn’t and Natalie and I ended up staying in Lauren’s room on the floor. I know I was definitely uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in a room by myself. Catherine and Jemma went back to their own rooms while Shannon, Jasmine and Izzy all stayed in Shannon’s. I didn’t really sleep much but I think I slept enough. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well anyway so I was prepared for that.

This morning we were up for 6:45am and I had to wake everyone up because nobody else got up on time. I went round knocking on doors. There was a walk of about 10 minutes with all of our luggage to the bus stop. The bus journey was about half an hour long and Chris had to pay for my fare because I only had a ten pound note. There was a mix up when the bus driver didn’t put it through twice so I had to ask for fare and he then told me Chris had already paid - despite the fact that he hadn’t put it through twice. Ugh. I’m so socially awkward… We then had to lug it all through Heathrow to Terminal 1. Once we’d checked in we hung around for a while, divided up money then went to get lunch. The flight was delayed so we all got quite bored trying to guess when our gate would appear. Once it did, we made our way to gate 50 and waited a bit before we could actually board the plane. I’m in 27C, though I was supposed to be in 27A but I swapped with Chris because I didn’t want the window seat. So far, Jacob has kept us amused and we’ve been laughing at random Croatian words such as “pet slaps” (five waterfalls) and the fact that he demanded I write “shpoon” in here. We’ve been laughing at his Top Gear alternative highway code. I’ve also been talking to a random woman whose daughter is doing a World Challenge to Ecuador next year. She kind of watched me writing then struck up a conversation when I paused. I also got a special vegetarian meal which is basically a weird salad - the woman who gave me it called me Rachel Eliza, which is also what my boarding pass says. Weird…

Friday 9th July - 7:49pm, coach, 50 minutes away

Not much going on. Jasmine is listening to my iPod and says I can charge it so as not to waste the battery once we get to Brunel University. Something tells me this probably won’t happen and that we'll both forget, but I don’t mind. People are still passing magazines around and Oliver and Joe are having a naff backseat fight at the moment. I didn’t think I’d challenge my insecurities before we’d even got to Croatia, but it’s not a bad thing. We've been talking about how much we love Enrique Iglesias after Jasmine found some of his songs on my iPod.