Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions and Awards

The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme has been running for 60 years with almost 2.6 million participants achieving an award. If you think your child’s school might be interested, please give us or them a shout.

Over the years Co-Director Richard has presented the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Awards at St James Palace to lots of deserving recipients and this award scheme is a great fit with our company values.

Our approach is to teach a mix of skills to meet the award requirements but also ensure participants are inspired to progress their technical skills and personal adventures. We provide expert tuition to prepare young people for the expedition and journey ahead.

Our team

This is something our coaching team is passionate about and all of them have experience completing adventures and expeditions in a wide range of locations including Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Yukon, Alaska, Nova Scotia, Africa, New Zealand to name a few.

Contact us to chat about Bronze DofE expeditions

You can see our Open Silver DofE Walking Expeditions here

You can see our Open Silver DofE Canoeing Expeditions here

You can see our Open Gold DofE Expeditions here

Walking D of E

We provide a range of useful skills including campcraft (tent pitching, camping, cooking, packing and more), first aid delivered by our qualified first aid tutors and navigation ensuring participants have a solid foundation of map work, ground to map, compass and orientation and other handy tips.

We have a range of equipment including rucksacks, trangia stoves, boots and camp mats that can be hired. We can also recommend local suppliers for discounted equipment.

Canoeing or Kayaking D of E

As well as the skills above, navigation, first aid and campcraft we provide professional instructors to teach paddlesport safety and rescue skills such as what to do in the event of a capsize. Paddlers are provided with all paddling kit including waterproofs, buoyancy aids, paddles, dry bags and barrels.

Training and Practice D of E expeditions

We use our own private campsites and venues for the training expeditions locally in Bedfordshire, with our own Kempston Outdoor Centre based on the River Great Ouse, our private woodland on the river downstream (both can be used for walking as well) and our farm site in North Bedfordshire / Cambridgeshire border with a second private woodland.

Our riverside woodland offers a stunning rural location that was voted Top 52 Things to do in the World by Lonely Planet and Top 3 UK destinations by Red Bull Magazine.

These venues are perfect for training and learning the ropes with professional instructors to support structured learning. 

Qualifying Expeditions (Assessed D of E)

After the training phase and usually time for some consolidation participants then complete their assessed D of E expedition with assessors supporting their activity but a bit more hands off. Our manta of safe, fun, learn means it is a memorable experience for young people building resilience in the outdoors, life skills, whilst completing paddling and walking journeys.