Their story, in their words…
For our Mark Evison Foundation Challenge, we decided to blend both the challenging aspect of a long-distance hike with our curiosity about the history of the Roman Empire. This led us to choosing the Hadrian’s Wall Path, a path running along the ruins of a 117km wall built by Emperor Hadrian in 122AD.
Over the course of 5 days and 4 nights, we walked around 100km from Carlisle to Newcastle, with 15kg bags and a 3-person tent. This was most definitely a challenge! We had not anticipated the difficulty of this hike, mainly since we are all relatively athletic. Nevertheless, this did not stop us from persevering and reaching Newcastle. We chose to camp all 4 nights, something which got us out of our comfort zone, as none of us had ever spent so many consecutive nights camping. We cooked our own food using a stove, which tasted amazing after long days of hiking.
Walking Hadrian’s Wall Path, not only were we able to see historical monuments that told of the greatness of the Roman Empire, but we were also to test both our physical strength and mental grit. Although the hike was exhausting, we were able to reach all the campsites on time and met so many kind and pleasant people, especially fellow hikers and campsite owners. Despite running out of food and being very fatigued on the 3rd day of our trek, we adapted our route to go through Hexham to re-supply, which tested our adaptability and problem-solving skills in a practical way.
I think all of us can say that despite encountering hardships, we all enjoyed experiencing England beyond London, and admiring amazing landscapes in the north. Having to make our own food, often being hungry and having to ration also really made us appreciate everyday things that we take for granted such as nutritious meals.
Overall, everyone got so much out of the trip. Not only did we get to spend a lot of time together and having satisfaction from completing such a feat but also developed our teamwork, organisational, planning and adaptation skills, needed to reach our goal. A new skill that we developed was operating within a budget and making essential decisions as to what the money should be used for.
We greatly appreciate the opportunity that the Mark Evison Foundation has given us and highly encourage students to take part and chase their own goals.
