We left the scout hall in Carrick at 7 o’clock on Friday evening, fit and ready for the tough investiture weekend ahead of us. Once we arrived at Lough Dan campsite in Co. Wicklow, we pitched our tents in the rain, but unfortunately not in time to watch the rest of the Late Late Toy Show! We then played the famous group game “Mafia” and went to bed.

We woke up not too early the next morning, took down our tents and played a few games while some of us did the food shopping for the hike. We then got our gear ready and left the campsite at about 3:30 o’clock, hoping the Wicklow Mountains would go easy on us for the night. It got dark and cold pretty early but we were all wrapped up in warm clothes. We were making good speed and we stopped many times for short breaks. As we got higher up the mountains the wind got so bad it was hard to keep balance! Many fell so we went into the forest for shelter. Here we all cooked our dinner on trangias and were glad to have a rest and some hot food. We set of again with the wind blowing us to the ground! The wind had got so bad we had a choice to keep going up to the top of Djouce Mountain or take the route down to the car park. Most of us kept going, we weren't giving up after all that. Near the top we had to hold onto someone else as the wind was that strong. We finally reached the top of Djouce Mountain at about 2am! We felt a great sense of achievement as we made our scout promise at the top.

It took us a long time to come down the mountain, nearly falling off cliffs, falling asleep in a ditch and with much complaining, especially from us girls! With screams of joy we made it to the car park at the bottom at about 5:30am on Sunday morning. Here we fell asleep waiting to get back to the campsite. We were all cosy and warm on the journey in the car to the campsite. Back in the barn we all feel asleep, only to get woken by the leaders 45 minutes later! We had a quick breakfast and got all packed up and were glad to get on the warm bus and to finally get some well needed sleep! Overall we hiked over 22km in the dark which took around 13 ½ hours. Well done to everyone on the weekend, it was tough, but we did it!