Monday

After a lovely breakfast, the Cubs had cereal and toast while the Leaders had to make do with bacon butties in raw toast. The Cubs were sent out to the wood pile for some fuel for the alter fire that Akela had lit with only a flint and steel.

When we had a large enough pile the Cubs were allowed to sit down for their first activity, kite making and colouring. A3 sheets of paper were used as the wing, bar-b-q skewers (de-pointed) were the struts and a choice of ribbon for a tail, a rather fetching yellow ribbon, a ribbon with the Union Flag or a St Georges Cross motif was on offer, for some reason only one Cub went for the yellow. The kites were decorated in a fever of patriotism, something to do with an upcoming football tournament. One or two Cubs went for a personal motif with their names picked out in lovely colours, only one Cub did a design depicting the fact that we were on a Cub Camp in a wood. The weather was fine and sunny with a fine steady wind that would suit us just fine when we got round to flying later in the day.

A mid morning break with drinks and a biscuit kept people energy levels up before we went out on the local Tree Trail. Two teams of six plus a Leader, a cook and a youngster. Peg's team was lucky as she was able to recognise a lot of the trees but had a slight problem remembering their common name. The Cubs enjoyed the walk and looking for the numbered markers in the trees, even if they were not very good at it, walking past at least three trees. Akela's team had collected a leaf from each tree and were looking through a tree identification book to find out which was which. This was finished with a little help from Peg and the competition declared a draw!

A quick game of cricket in the camp field, before lunch was served on benches pulled out into the sunshine.

Akela went of to the Camp Office to get ready for the next activity, caving. A series of tunnels had been constructed in the area next to our tents and while Akela opened the access points Hathi went of to fill a couple of buckets of water to damp down the dust that was bound to be filing the tunnels. We did not want the Cubs choking on the dust as they moved along the tubes. The Leaders timing for pouring in the water was appalling. Cubs always seemed to get in the way, just as we poured some water in a Cub appeared, shame.

The two youngsters were a bit hesitant but Harry showed them the way round and once they had got the hang of it they were like rats up a drain pipe. Oliver wasn't so lucky, he was eventually persuaded to crawl a short distance between two access points only to have a bucket of water tipped over near him. To say he was upset would be to put it mildly.

Once the Cubs had had enough and the water ran out we got the Cubs dry and made our way to the big field for another run around. It was during this that Hathi, the big jessie, managed to twist his knee badly enough to do a 'Colin Jackson' as Akela described it. The Cubs were now without a fully fit Leader as Akela had damaged his shoulder the previous night. The final score in the footie game was the girls lost by a golden goal. Watching the boys panic when they heard that Zeze was right behind them provided some light relief for the injured, that included two Cubs with bent arms.

Tea was Pizza, chips and spaghetti hoops followed by Angel delight with or with out sprinkly bits.

The Cubs were expected to write journals of their experiences on camp and this was done regularly after a main meal. The tea things were put away and it was time to tie on the flying lines to the kites and go and fly them. At this precise moment it became apparent that all was not well with the weather, it started to form lumps of water in the air, could this possibly be rain, on one of Akela's, aka sungod, camps?

Yes it was. So no kiting for a while. We went out to discover what we hadn't seen on our exploration the previous night. This included the zip-wire or death slide as the Cubs were told. The rain started to ease and a quick game of hide and seek was proposed, the Cubs all vanished and Akela and Hathi counted to a suitable number and then waited, we were in no hurry to find the Cubs. After a short delay we set out and soon had them all. Akela went of and hid while the Cubs were complaining to Hathi. The Cubs realised this and went of on an Akela hunt. Eventually he was found and he was forgiven as the sun was now out and the kite flying was back on.

Unfortunately with the rain going so did the wind, a flat calm lay over the big field. Oh well, the Cubs would have to provide the air speed to get the kites flying by running around. It became obvious that some of the Cubs hadn't followed the instructions as the kites were upside down. Harry and Laurence Elliot were the more successful of the flyers, Harry was keen and flew several other Cubs kites and managed to get them all to fly. All the Cubs had a go at flying and they all had some exercise in the late evening sunshine.

To fill in time while the hot chocolate was manufactured the Cubs had a go at mini rockets. A small amount of deadly 'Di-hydrogen monoxide' was put into a 35mm film canister (does anybody remember 35mm film?) a 'Power Pill' was dropped in and the whole thing turned upside down. After a while the gases given off by the reaction of the 'antacid tablet' and the deadly 'water' were enough to pop the canister into the air, quite a way into the air as several of the canisters found their way onto the roof.

Then after a quick wash the Cubs went to their tents and bed. Shortly afterwards despite a nearby group having a camp-fire sing song they went quiet. Could this be true? The Leaders were actually going to get to bed on the same day as they woke up, a first for any of our camps.

End of Day 2