On a cold windswept footpath near Angeldown Farm, near Wantage in Oxfordshire on the morning or Saturday 21 September, a group of teenage cadets from 2210 Cowley Squadron and a cadet from 2121 Abingdon Squadron of the Air Training Corps gathered in preparation to begin their two day Bronze level expedition. The cadets were Andrzej Chmielewski, Karen Furlong, Guilherme Neves, Lukaz Price Nowak, Johnny Roberts and Steven Crouch.

The cadets were participating in the final of two expeditions, each lasting two days for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. The aim of the expedition for the cadets was to walk through the countryside surrounding the town of Wantage looking at the historical features and comparing the natural environment and humanities footprint on the countryside, while being assessed on their navigation skills, camp craft and teamwork.

The countryside round Wantage is deep in history from the Ridgeway national path to Iron Age hill forts to medieval and Victorian villages dotted across the landscape made up of ancient woodland, farmer’s fields and disused quarries.

The challenges the expedition would bring to the cadets were that, for all bar one of them, they been in the Air Training Corps less than several months and would have to work as a team to complete and navigate the route they had created and face the physical challenges of carrying all their clothing, equipment and food over the distance of the expedition route, with little experience of walking or being self sufficient in the countryside.

Their route would take them along the Ridgeway a short distance, then swing them south through open and quite desolate countryside before turning back North and back onto the Ridgeway before descending down to Britchcombe Farm at the base of the historic White Horse in Uffington to camp for the night. The following day the cadets would stay within the valleys north of the Ridgeway with their route taking them through a number of historic villages in the Vale of the White Horse and into the market town of Wantage.

The cadets set off in good spirits and after a few metres realised they had started off in the wrong direction! With sheepish grins and red faces they turned around and began their expedition in earnest. The route they had produced to take them to Britchcombe Farm campsite took them through bleak windswept countryside which would and did test their navigation skills and at times their confidence both as individuals and collectively as a team.

As the last few kilometres were completed, Cadet Price Nowak developed blisters on the side and sole of his foot and had a number of hotspots, the precursors to blisters. On arrival the team, without input from the supervisors or assessor split into twos, one set comprising of Price Nowak and another who set about treating his blisters, with another two cadets setting up tents and the last two starting the teams communal evening meal, an excellent example of coordinated teamwork. Following on from their meal, the cadets checked their equipment, went over their maps and route cards to familiarise themselves with the next days route and with their assessor discussed the days events.

The cadets rose with the Sun on the Sunday morning to a bright blue sky which promised to herald a warm sunny day. The cadets had breakfast, broke camp with a quiet efficiency and were raring to go. The route for Sunday was physically less demanding but actually harder to navigate, taking them through a number of Victorian era villages criss-crossing woods and farmland. At times they struggled with the navigation but they had learnt from and improved their skills from their previous day’s experience. As they progressed along their route, their confidence and spirits rose and arrived in the Market Square of Wantage twenty minutes ahead of schedule, smiling and on top of the world. Following a debrief of the day's experiences and the expedition as a whole from their assessor, they were told they had passed the expedition phase of their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Six very happy tired cadets who six months previously had never undertaken any outdoor activities such as hill or country walking or even camping went home very tired but on top of the world.