British weather doesn’t always go the way you want!

We got ready quickly and set off early for a long journey to Cambridge Aqua Park near Ely in the beautiful, flat, Norfolk Fens ready for an enjoyable day.

After what seemed like a never-ending journey we eventually arrived at the aqua park. We checked in and were given wetsuits to wear throughout the session. I squeezed into my damp wetsuit that rather uncomfortably stuck to my skin. Then the wind started blowing. I heard the trees wildly rustling about and felt the wind sweep my hair into my face. We started to get anxious when we heard the instructors discussing whether they would have to close the aqua park as the wind would make it too dangerous. However they decided to give it a try then close if they needed. After a quick safety briefing we made our way to the lake.

A wooden plank led onto the rippling water. I jumped in with a big splash! My feet squelched into the soggy mud before I slowly floated up and shivered with cold. I swam over to the inflatable course excited to get started. Using my arms I pulled myself up, letting my body slide onto the inflatable: like a young seal happily sliding onto slippery rocks! I looked around the inflatable and could see slides, things to climb up, trampolines leading into the lake, challenging obstacles: like monkey bars over the water, and even tall platforms you could jump into the water from. With all these thrilling things I couldn’t decide what to go on first. I finally decided to start on the monkey bars. I balanced across a beam like inflatable bar above the water to get to the monkey bars.

For the monkey bars there was a big inflatable arching above the water in a hemisphere shape, with small ring hoops dangling down from the top for you to swing on. My sister and I quickly swung across to the other side then looked back to watch our parents. Then ‘splash’, my mum fell in, soon followed by water once again splashing about like it was raining, this time with my dad in the middle of the shower not my mum. We all slipped across the wide track of inflatable to the next obstacle: a big, steep slide leading into the lake. I scrambled up to the top of the obstacle, using the rope hoops to pull myself up. When I got to
the top I realized how high up I was, I felt my heart pounding, like a bass drum beating in my chest. However, quickly I decided to go down the slide, so after waiting for my sister to get to the top of the slide I slid down landing with a big ‘splosh’ in the lake.

We continued to go round all the different obstacles. It was getting near the end of our session. I remembered that the one thing I really wanted to try was somersaulting into the water. First I tried from a very low platform, then decided I wanted to do it from high up. We asked the instructor if we could do this. She said we could, but we’d have to be quick as she was about to blow the whistle for the session to end. I rushed over to the tall platform, and scrambled up as quickly as I could. Just as I was about to somersault the final whistle blew. However, luckily, as I was already at the top they allowed me to do my somersault. Because I was so hurried I didn’t even think about getting scared!

After this we swum to the wooden platform from where we had started, and climbed out the lake. I beat the rest of my family out the water so had time to take a quick photo of them. Once out of the water we were freezing, and were glad to get out of our damp wetsuits and back into our lovely warm clothes.

After an enjoyable pub lunch we went to Wicken Fen for the next part of our adventure – a boat ride through the Fens. Unfortunately, when we arrived we were told it was too windy so the
boat ride had been cancelled. We tried to hide our disappointment and decided to go for a nature walk instead. We saw some men climbing up the windmill, which had previously been used to drain the Fens. It seemed the wind was too strong even for the windmill and they were having to tie the sails down! We entertained ourselves by taking lots of photos of the wildlife along the way, including a red dragonfly which
appeared to be posing on a bench for its photo!

We also did crayon rubbings of metal pictures of wildlife that were hidden around the site. We ended the day with an ice cream. I gave half of my icecream to my sister because my tooth was so wobbly that it hurt to eat the ice cream. Typically, just as my sister had finished it my tooth came out!

Despite the weather ruining our day a bit it was a fantastic day and one I will always remember!