Girl Guides Lucan good

FIVE young Lucan women have reached the pinnacle of Guiding after hiking 60km in County Kerry while carrying all their camping and cooking equipment, food and clothes, and surviving on €3.50 a day.

The Irish Girl Guides (IGG) members, who are aged 17 and 18, also completed eight projects and kept a log book of their experiences during the five-day Chief Commissioner’s Award.

The girls, members of Griffeen Valley Senior Branch didn’t know the location until the day the challenge started, so they couldn’t prepare for the projects in advance.

They were delighted to find themselves on the picturesque Iveragh peninsula, where they enjoyed the stunning scenery, meeting the locals and learning about the heritage.

Sarah Connolly (age 17) said: “We put our 11kg bags on our backs, hiked 62.5km over 5 days. It was something completely mad to do, but something completely worth doing.”

Sarah’s team-mate, Amy Dunne (17), says completing the Chief Commissioner’s Award was one of the hardest things she has ever undertaken, but also one of the best. “I thought the hiking would be the hardest part but I feel like the real challenge was the emotional rollercoaster it took us on.”

Sarah King (age 18) says: “It was so challenging not to just give up when your feet were sore, or when the hills got steep and you could no longer feel anything other than the burning sensations in your muscles. My body was screaming at me to stop but my mind was fighting back saying, ‘Don’t give up; you can do this.”