To read part three of day nine, click here.

A couple of hours and another creek later, we were ready to stop for lunch. We were having salami, cheese, and crackers, and everyone was hungry!

An hour later, they were still cutting the salami. Lets just say that the knives on Outward Bound weren’t the sharpest. And when you had to cut something like Salami or even the cheese, it took quite a while.

We got so hungry while they were cutting things, we broke out Snack. There were never enough crackers, so we were going to have to do it anyway!

They finally got the salami and cheese cut, so we started eating. Everyone was spread out all over the trail, backpacks everywhere. There was a clattering noise coming from the trail above us, but we ignored it and continued eating. That was a mistake.

“Hikers UP!” A voice shouted out the words, scaring us all to death. I looked to my right and saw something I never want to see again. There were four men on mountain bikes, coming towards us as fast as they could. At least, that’s what it seemed like.

Everyone in the middle of the trail scrambled out of the way as fast as they could, taking their packs with them. They weren’t fast enough – Ben was still pulling his pack out of the way when the man in front stopped, inches away from running over Ben’s foot.

“Awfully sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your lunch!”

When the coast was clear, the men started off again, bouncing over the trail. I tried not to laugh, and so did some of the others, but in the end we were all helplessly laughing.

“I thought they were going to run us over!”

“I thought that they were police coming to arrest us.”

“I could see them running over my pack like it’s one of those big rocks in the trail back there! They’re going to have fun getting over those rocks!”

“Forget the rocks, what about the creek we crossed twenty minutes ago? There’s no trail split in between here and there. They’re going to cross that creek on those bikes?”

Two hours after we sat down, we started off again. It was probably two or three in the afternoon, and we hadn’t even gone half of the way to our campsite.

Click here to read the next part of Day Nine.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*