Welcome to a very special blog post, everyone! This one’s not from me, but from a budding young adventurer who’s very close to my heart – my 10 years old son. When he came up to me, eyes shining with excitement and asked if he could share his own story about the Bear Grylls Gone Wild Festival, I couldn’t say no. So, without further ado, let’s dive into his firsthand experience of adventure, fun, and a little bit of the ‘wild’ side. Take it away, kiddo.

If you’d like to read my take on it too, see Gone Wild Festival: Our Family Adventure This Summer

My Adventure Holiday at Gone Wild

During my summer I had a vast amount of activities and challenges to explore and conquer. By a mile my favourite was the Bear Grylls, Gone Wild festival which had so many extremely fun and awesome things to do. During this short report, I will be taking you through the exact experience that me and my mum had. So if you want to find out about the awesome holiday, read on. Are you brave enough to come on this frightful and fun experience? THEN LET’S GO

A car ride from hell

Thursday 23rd of August at 6 am, my alarm goes off, urghh! It felt like it was louder than ever because I was so tired, but I got up and got my soft and comfy clothes ready for the 4 and a half hour car journey. Personally I didn’t think that travelling 222 miles would be worth it, but as soon as we had started with the activities I was instantly proven wrong. When I got in the car I swiftly turned on my ipad and paired my headphones so I could watch my movies in peace . I’m sure my mum enjoyed my company. Once I had finished my movie I looked at mum’s phone and wrote down the entire Gone Wild Festival schedule for the whole week because the campsite had no internet . About half way we stopped at a small service station on the 97 mile long motorway and went to get drinks and to go to the loo. Then we got back on the road and went full steam ahead to the festival . As soon as we were 10 minutes away I was so excited I started going crazy. We are here, after all that time. Finally!

Setting up the tent

When we got out of the car we had to lug the tent and all of our belongings through security then we found a suitable and sustainable place to settle down for the next 4 days. Setting up the tent was really difficult because it was super windy. At Least we had put it up in our garden the day before to check if it was ok and how to put it up. I did enjoy going inside the tent for the first time because we haven’t camped for around 7 years.

The Bear Grylls Festival

To be honest if you wanted to hear every single activity there was to do at the Bear Grylls Festival, you would probably be reading this for years but, I won’t be that mean so I’ll list the most important and fun ones that we did. So we can start off with my favourite activity THE STALK.

To explain it, it’s basically paint-balling for kids mixed with military tactics. For example we would have 5 seconds to run as fast as we possibly can, to get closer to the enemies and then go into different crawl positions ,while the enemy were firing. Then, we stay hidden and shoot them down 1 by 1

I also really enjoyed fire building class because we got to toast a marshmallow at the end of the session.

The ones that were rated average in my book were: spear throwing, rock climbing, caving, archery, combat archery, abseiling off a tree, colour run and the trapeze .

Right, now the moment you have been waiting for. My least favourite activity at Gone Wild was, drum roll please. Abseiling off a huge wall! The instructors put the harness on so tight I could barely breathe and I’m not exaggerating.

The Gone Wild Commando Course

As you can probably tell this is me prepared for the 2km Gone Wild commando course. All camouflaged, doing warmups. Well, when we started the race we had no idea what we were going to be put through! We set off and the first obstacle was a lake crossing. When I was jumping tire to tire, one of my shoes fell off into the river so I went in to find it. Sadly, it had already fallen to the bottom, 2 feet down and sunk into the quicksand .I was scouring around the river for around 30 minutes with no luck, so my mum and I left the race without completing it (me without a shoe and covered in mud). The showers that night were very stressful because I was still covered in mud and they were super busy in the campsite (at least I got one).

This is me before and after the first obstacle.

Jam worthy music

There were so many fabulous bands and singers in the evening like Ella Henderson “ run me up in diamonds cover me in gold “, Feeder “he’s got a brand new car looks like a jaguar “, scouting for girls “ we all want to be famous, be a face on the screen” and gabrielle “ only you to me have the key”. There were so many amazing dj’s as well like Dick n Dom . All the music was so great.

Carnage car home

Once we had taken down the tent, which was really stressful because as you can imagine sleeping in a tent for 3 nights makes you very tired . We lugged all the stuff back into the car and drove off but what happened then surprised me. I fell asleep in the car for 2 hours, which was weird because I never fall asleep in the car let alone 2 hours. When I woke up, we had stopped so I got out of the car and walked into the services to buy a nice cold drink for the rest of the way home. When we passed StoneHenge I was not very satisfied but it might have been because I felt so car sick or that there were just big rocks collected
together. Once we got home I sprinted up stairs, brushed my teeth and jumped into bed .
It’s never been more comfy in my life . zzzzzzzzzzz

I can’t wait to go back to the Gone Wild Bear Grylls festival next year!

Gone Wild Festival Rewiews & Tips

Don’t miss out on our Gone Wild Festival review, complete with firsthand insights and experiences. Plus, I’ll share my top tips for family camping, ensuring your outdoor adventure is nothing short of amazing.