camping – Page 2 – Explorer Scout 84

Beast of the future

Unfortunately this is not another snow camp unlike the beast from the east but it was another camping trip.

I went camping last weekend with my friend who I hadn’t camped with for a couple of years. It was nice to catch up and because we were the only ones from our unit, we made friends with other explorer groups in our county. I saw my Jamboree friends as well, who as well as I were taking a well deserved break from fundraising.

On the Friday evening I failed at circus skills but instead aced a game of cards. Followed by a disco, to then finally fall asleep at 1am the next morning.

The next day we could choose which activities we wanted to do. I did archery, rifle shooting, caving, a blind folded trail, tomahawks, arts and crafts, laser tag, bushcraft and many more.

The evening entertainment consisted of a silent disco where half the room would be dancing to the cha cha slide and the other half of the room would be singing and dancing along to YMCA. This finished gone midnight so yet again, I finally fell asleep at 1.

The final day consisted of rain and more rain – luckily this hadn’t been over the whole weekend. I did some more arts and craft by building a tower from spaghetti and sweets, did some archery and played some more cards. I went home having had an amazing time and meeting some amazing new friends.

A Wild Weekend in the Woods

I have been on another training camp with my Jamboree unit last weekend. On the Friday night, we travelled up on the minibus, jamming out to music for 2 hours and catching up with one another.

We arrived at the campsite after pulling down a very very bumpy lane. Once the minibus had parked up, we were told by one of our leaders that there were no proper toilets – instead it was a wooden shed with a hole in the ground which fed the soil. In the dark I was not prepared for all the spiders I was going encounter especially after Strategy.

Before we set up our tents, we had to help the rest of our unit put up the cooking tents and say hello again. Apart from the disaster of me not being able to find my spare batteries and then finding them in the only pocket I hadn’t looked in I could help. We then got to set up our own tents before sitting around the campfire.

Around the campfire we had an introduction where we got new numbers to call out when someone would shout ‘number off’ and we’d count in order our new number. We got put into our patrols for the weekend and agreed on a time to wake up and start to light a fire to cook on.

I woke up on time to meet with my patrol to collect fire wood and start the fire. We collected lots and lots of wood as there is no such thing as having too much wood and we started cooking once the fire got hot enough. We cooked the eggs first, then some veggie sausage on a giant saucepan until I found a smaller saucepan so we could start the bacon. I was on putting the bacon onto the frying pan duty and saved my egg to have a bacon and egg buttie. Our patrol then washed up and gathered with other patrols, 20 minutes late, for flag break.

We would be doing 4 rota activities in the morning including; social media, personal hygiene, airport security and washing.

At the social media station we learnt about how landscape should be the natural photo shot with the photo not being staged and hence natural. So, our task was to take natural photos of the other groups without disturbing them.

At the personal hygiene station we learnt that our main goals would be to be happy whilst keeping clean by washing our hands and to always tell a leader if something is wrong. Our task was to be blindfolded with paint on our hands and to wash it off and to stop when we thought they were clean.

At the airport security station we had to work out what items we would be able to take in our holdall going to the USA from the UK and visa versa. I learnt that you can only take liquids of 100ml and your water bottle has to be empty when taking it through security.

Finally at the washing station we had to make our t-shirts muddy and then cleaned them. First we rinsed them to get the majority of dirt out and off of them and then we used hot water with washing powder to wash our t-shirts and then rinsed them in cold water again. We then wrung out excess water and hung them up to dry and went to get lunch.

After lunch we got set the challenge to decide on what our patrol wanted for tea and decide on 2 people to go shopping whilst the rest of the patrol helped with the big bonfire/ campfire we would be having in the evening. By a fair game of rock, paper, scissors it was decided that I and a other person would go shopping. So, with our shopping list and £25 we checked the kitchen pantry and went to catch the minibus to the supermarket.

After a quick stop to a scout hut to get extra utensils on the way, we arrived at Asda to go shopping. We got our trolley and were off. We met the vlogging patrol with their body camera and compared our shopping trollies. My patrol’s trolley contained; pasta, carbonara sauce, bacon, muffins, fizzy drinks and cheese. The other patrol’s trolley contained vegetables and noodles for their stir fry.

Once finished, we travelled back on the minibus to see the others had built a huge campfire whilst we had gone. As soon as we got back we started cooking our tea. Everyone wanted some of our carbonara and we served many of the VIPs who joined us. There was plenty to share round. We then washed up and headed over to camp break to finish the evening, to name our mascot bear and to play a few games.

After the games we had our massive campfire which the circumference was the size of a trampoline and the height of a traffic light. It went from freezing cold to boiling hot in the split of a second. We then did our sketches in our patrols as well as our campfire song.

The next morning we cooked pancakes with bacon and went full out on toppings. We then broke camp and had campflag where we were told we’d have to walk to the village hall to listen to the parents’ meeting. It wasn’t a long journey walking and we listened to the meeting while eating homemade cake. We said goodbye to our friends from the other county and then we were back on the minibus home – where we stopped off at the services on the way back quickly. We arrived back in our own county and went back our separate ways after our karaoke session in the minibus.

Our mascot’s official name is now Blue – in the photo you can see Blue having a go at hand washing our clothes.

Rain Rain Go Away, Come Back Another Day …

It’s been the first week of my summer holidays and I am already wanting to go back to school – where there is a set timetable and no kittens running around trying to trip you up.

My first week of no school consisted of seeing my friends, getting a new kitten and doing some homework (yes my teachers really did set me homework over the summer holidays). However, I did have an enjoyable time at my county’s Jamboree unit meetup.

We designed a menu for our September camp where I’ll be with my unit and found out that we will have to walk to buy the food to practice for the Jamboree site. We also looked thoroughly through our ‘Jamboree in a bag’ where I spotted an American football, flags, maple syrup, maracas and much more. I am already planning some activities I could do with different sections with the bag and have looked on the UK contingent website of activities I could do – I can’t wait to make a tipee with my Beavers and other local units around me.

I also found out about some unofficial news about the Jamboree. However, this is only a rumour but if it turns out to be true I’m going to be very, very happy.

After our month long UK ‘heatwave’ I can be glad to say that we have finally had two days of rain – yipee! However, I’m starting to miss the sun which is already preparing me for the heat out on the Jamboree campsite.

This week’s top tip is to frequently check the UK contingents website for any new information. I am enjoying looking at the ‘Jamboree in a bag’ section to look at all the different activities I could run in my local area.

Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening

No click bait here, well ok I’ll admit maybe a little bit of click bait …

So last weekend I went to Beaver camp! My adventure started on Friday evening when according to my Mum I spent far too long packing for one night away. Does she not remember the key rule – there’s no such thing as bad weather only bad kit! Well as the weather forecast was a mixture, I wanted to ‘Be Prepared’.

Saturday morning arrived and I headed to where we would be camping and helped unpack the bacon (mmm yummy).

The Beavers arrived as we were setting up their huge tents, all prepared for their jungle camp.

First up was splitting the Beavers into their lodges each with their own young leader. My lodge’s first activity was putting up a tent, followed by archery and then fire lighting. They got a stamp for each activity they completed filling out their jungle passports.

After a ‘short’ break filling up everyone’s water bottles we did some more activities. My lodge did a blind folded maze, followed be creating the word Damboree using natural letters (Damboree is the Beavers version of a Jamboree) and then completed an endangered animal activity. By this point it was time for dinner.

Dinner consisted of the Scout camp classic “Spaghetti Bolognese”. Whilst I refuelled on caffeine the Beavers played some indoor games as it was too wet outside for their campfire as some of the Beavers missed the memo about there’s no such thing as bad weather only bad kit.

They then sat round the small campfire and sang some classic songs. After this, they were read a bedtime story and got ready for bed.

The Beavers were specifically told to not wake the leaders up in the early hours of the morning or to stay up late all night talking. However, they didn’t listen to us. They stayed up till way past midnight and woke me up at 5:30 in the morning. This was officially the shortest amount of sleep I had ever had on any Scouting camp – even less than my very first Jamboree camp.

Whilst waiting for the Beavers to be quiet we could see lightning lighting up the sky.

The next morning I packed my kit and tent up and ate the breakfast I was waiting for since the beginning of the camp, bacon.

They first did some backwards cooking by toasting marshmallows. As I was on putting the marshmallows on sticks duty once the Beavers had all had a s’mores one Beaver told me that I had to make one for Bat (one of the leaders). They then told me (after I had already made myself one) that I could have one so I replied saying that I was going to have one anyway.

The activities for that morning included animal mask making and knot tying. They completed both these activities and then went on to tracking where we set up tracks (made with sticks) around the field with the Beavers having to look for them.

After a busy morning it was time for the jungle banquet. The Beavers selected an array of jungle themed food with pudding savoured last. The pudding (might I say so myself) was the best. We had animal cupcakes with slime, twigs and dead flies.

Once lunch was finished, we returned any lost property to the Beavers and then it was time to go home…

… But not for me, I still had to take down the beavers tents and wash up in the kitchen.