On a glorious sunny Sunday at the end of the Easter holidays twenty seven members from the Flint and Denbigh Pony Club aged between 4 to 14 years worked in teams of five, each team had two adult escorts and they navigated their way up to Llyn Parc following orienteering markers and practicing their map reading skills.
When the riders reached Llyn Parc, they dismounted and parents were at hand to hold their ponies while the children ate their picnic and played by the lake before they attempted the Pony Club Achievement Badge on identifying twelve native trees. Gareth Jones from the Forestry Commission had kindly got up early that morning and had been around the forest collecting samples of the twelve trees the children had to identify to gain their badge. On each branch Gareth had put a number on it and the children had to identify which tree it was from. Thirteen children correctly identified all twelve trees and received their Tree Badge, the younger children all received a certificate with the number of trees they could correctly identify. It was fantastic to see all the children enthusiastic and interested in the British habitat.
On the way up to Llyn Park and also on the homeward journey back to the car park the teams had to find fourteen orienteering flags, each had a ‘tree’ related question and working as a team they were able to answer the questions, this resulted in four of the six teams getting 13 out of 14 questions correct, leading to an exciting tie breaker question at the end of the day where Gareth Jones cut down two branches from nearby trees and asked the nominated members from each group to name the trees. The winning team member was very quick to answer and won a box of chocolates for her team to share.
A fantastic family day out was had by all and we would like to thank Gareth Jones for all his help and support for making this day truly memorable.
