Camp Review
This year’s May Day camp took us to Essex to a great campsite called Thriftwood. There were 18 of us in total, which was a fantastic turnout. We left Stoneleigh early on the Saturday morning, which meant that we arrived in good time to put up the tents before lunch. The younger boys learnt how to put up our traditional style Patrol tents and the older boys got to grips with our lightweight hike tents.
After a much needed lunch we headed off to the on site climbing wall to try our hand at climbing and all of the boys gave it a good go at getting to the top, with most getting there. After climbing we all went to the assault course and after a practice go all the boys had a time trial.As with all of our camps the boys cook all their own meals and they have to cook for the leaders. Dinner of chicken fajitas was a roaring success. Once the inevitable washing up was finished it was time to have a go at outdoor lazer quest. The boys all looked really funny with their strange helmets on, but it seemed to be good fun. Hopefully kit that the poor Scout was wearing when he fell into a really smelly muddy puddle has recovered by now! In the evening the boys were taught how to light a camp fire and this meant that we could spend the evening telling stories and jokes round the fire.
On Sunday morning we got up and went to the site’s own lake for rafting. We had to build our own rafts out of poles, rope and big plastic barrels. Most of the rafts made it into the water, but some were definitely built better than others. It was safe to say that everyone ended up rather wet!After a lunch and the chance to dry out we tried our hand at circus skills. We got a chance to try out juggling, plate spinning, diabalo and stilt walking. We then headed off round site on an orienteering course. Our final activity of the day was archery. The instructors were brilliant and after a couple of practise goes they set us a couple of challenges. Firstly if we could pop the balloon in the centre of the target we would get a Mars Bar and secondly if, as a team, we could hit all of the different colours on the target in order, we would have saved the princess. Needless to say the princess went un-rescued!
Our time spent practising fire lighting was not wasted as our dinner was to be cooked on a wood fire. After a meal of spaghetti bolognese followed by chocolate bananas the evening was spent toasting marshmallows and playing games like charades round the camp fire.Sunday morning gave us the chance to do some abseiling before we packed away our tents and headed home.
I know that I thoroughly enjoyed our weekend and I’m pretty certain that most of the boys did too!