On November 14th 2008 all of Transition Year in Loreto College Foxrock walked 10 kilometres (six laps of Cabinteely Park) for our chosen charities - the Mater Hospital and P.R.E.D.A. During the weeks leading up to the walk, we were asked to go around houses in our housing estates to get sponsorship in order to raise money. There would be a prize for the class who raised the most and the individual who raised the most.

To make the walk that little bit more interesting each class was asked to decide on a theme to dress up as for the walk. The themes decided by the five classes were Farm Animals; Boxes; The Simpsons; Super Heroes; and Miscellaneous. My class 4L decided on miscellaneous as we were very indecisive on our theme.

At 11:50 we were asked to leave our classrooms and go to the 1st Year locker room where we began to get dressed up. The excitement began to build as we did ourselves up. Shouts of laughter filled the locker room as we saw the state of our classmates dressed up as cows or in giant boxes. Camera flashes were flying left, right and centre as we tried to capture as many memories as possible before we had to leave.

The time came to leave the locker room. A quick clean up didn’t make much difference to the state of the locker room after we had been there. And so our journey began from our school to Cabinteely Park. The chat continued all the way down with people singing, brutally, along to their iPods.

Once the roll was called we started off on our hike enthusiastically. Full of chatter, we skipped and hopped about through our first lap. With some walking faster than others, it didn’t take us long to fill up the whole park. By the end of lap one, we were feeling very confident that the task at hand would be an easy one. Yet by the end of lap two our confidence was beginning to alter. We realised that it was slightly trickier than anticipated, with some realising that jeans were a bad choice in clothing for such a long and vigorous walk.

Our cheers and chats slowly got quieter while the cameras were put away one by one as the novelty wore off. After lap number 4, our legs were beginning to get sore and those who didn’t come prepared with a bottle of water, were beginning to get parched. But the dress up wasn’t only for the students as Ms. Litton, Ms. Regan and Ms. O’Leary came dressed in Loreto Foxrock uniforms with luminous pink leg-warmers, ear-rings and hair-bands. If we were to dress like that for school it would be considered a green-slip offence…such hypocrites!

And as our walk came to an end we were all thrilled to see the finish line as we weren’t quite sure just how much more our little legs could take. But before heading home the whole year jumped into one of the craziest and colourful group photos I’ve seen. Even though it was for charity I think bag packing is a much easier task. I don’t think I’ll be visiting Cabinteely Park for another while. I’ve seen enough of it for now!

By: Sadhbh Kingston 4L