Silver Award

Welcome to the next step of your fantastic venture or to the Direct Entrants welcome to the first step in the challenge that awaits you. The Silver level of the Award builds on the foundations learnt at Bronze and prepares you for more strenuous adventures and the ultimate challenge of the Gold Award. It allows you to further develop an awareness of the outdoors reflecting upon what you have experienced at Bronze and undertake ventures into different and more challenging wilderness environments. Should your fitness levels be slightly less than what is required for the expedition section of the Award there is the facility to undertake an Exploration that is less challenging on fitness ( visit www.dofehillary.co.nz for more details). You again need to attend a training camp as the first step in the Adventurous Journey section of the Silver level, (Direct entrants you need to do Bronze training prior to this) and then proceed onto a practice journey and finally an assessed two night tramp covering a distance of approximately 40km.

Training

Each level of the Award has 14 topics that need to be covered, these are:

Practice Journey

This is basically as the name describes and opportunity to plan, undertake and learn from a non-arduous expedition whilst under shadow-supervision, at Silver though this venture is of two night duration so requires you to pack, unpack and repack your belongings whilst in the wilderness setting. Again identified knowledge and skill gaps can be subsequently addressed in further training or changed processes before the final expedition. Training needs to have been done prior to undertaking a practice journey, and the mode of transportation, (tramp, cycle, kayak etc) needs to be the same as that planned for the assessed expedition or exploration.

Expedition

An expedition is an assessed venture that is in the same mode of transport to that done for the practice journey. Group members should be of similar age and level of experience, and in groups of 4 to 7. At Silver level the requirements are 3 days and 2 nights with at least 7 hours of activity during the day.

Explorations

An exploration is a venture involving less distance than an expedition but more time is spent investigating and discovering the environment that you are in. Ten hours of activity involving transportation, setting up camp etc is still required for the exploration option of this level. Whilst we do not have planned trips advertised for this option, if you think it suits your group then please contact us for possible ideas and dates. Again groups of 4-7 and of similar age and level of experience are required.

Please click on the more on the calendar to view information about each of these components.