In September 2021, Lucke Gabriel, along with his colleagues Marcus Fair (Founder of Eternal Media) and Sam Rowlands, filmed NWRC’s 100-mile walk around Anglesey. The walk took place over seven days around the island of Anglesey, located in the north-west of Wales, and the walkers and film crew (except Marcus) stayed at a bunkhouse near to Snowdonia. The recovery walk made it onto BBC Wales News; most of the footage shown on that report was from Eternal Media’s film, Trails of Recovery.
‘Even when you are feeling really broken, you can actually get through these challenges. But not on your own, as a team. As a community, we do it together. That’s how we get well. Stuff like this is just priceless, and it’s kind of spreading the message that recovery is a really exciting thing.’ Saffron
The following September, NWRC organised a week-long range of activities around their bunk house in Rhyd-Ddu, a small village in Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) which is a starting point for a variety of mountain walks. The expedition involved gorge walking, rock climbing, raft racing, canoeing, and walking up Snowdon. The Eternal Media film crew followed NWRC members every step of the journey as the latter group forged new recovery bonds with each other and discovered resilience they didn’t know they had within themselves.
Lucke, as Film Director, wanted the film to be as different as possible to Trails of Recovery. He saw the latter to be more focused on community members overcoming struggles, whereas this new film would be much more about having fun in recovery, despite the challenges.
The gorge walking took place at Afon Ddu, where the community members enjoyed various climbs, going down water slides, and jumping into natural pools. Mike described there being lots of camaraderie and encouragement as people engaged in the various challenges.
On the following day, it was hard enough walking up to the cliff, without the challenge of climbing the vertical cliff face using a rope that the film captures so well. There was a real sense of achievement amongst community members in completing this latter activity, particularly for some of the older members of the team and those who had a fear of heights. Teamwork played a key role in the canoeing activities on Lake Bala.
The week culminated in a six hour expedition walking up and down Snowden (Yr Wydffa). The film includes some awe-inspiring shots from a drone controlled by Marcus and some powerful music, the combination of which really stir emotions. As did seeing the team reach Snowden’s summit. ‘Seeing people who are clearly struggling… Seeing them get through, push through, fight through sometimes, is just inspiring. That inspiration helps me face my challenges.’ Mike
One thing that Lucke emphasised in our interview was the fact that a number of passers-by stopped community members and the film crew during the week, asking them who they were and what they were doing. These people always responded favourably when they heard the answers to these questions.
The Recovery Expedition film was the winner of the Best Documentary (Wales) for Focus Wales 2023.