Survival Camp

September 9th - 10th.

Our annual opportunity for some of our older Cubs to sleep in a bush.

This camp has been very popular in the last few years as it means the older Cubs get a chance to do something a little more challenging.

Friday night was get-the-kit-ready-for-the-weekend-night. Our normal nights activities were put to one side as we prepared for camp. Josh had kindly offered to use his trailer to transport the kit down to the field at Chelwood. The Cubs brought their overnight bags to the Scutt and nearly all of them claimed to have packed their own bags, so well done them. It was amazing how much kit we had to take, it was hard to believe that we were going for one night.

Cubs on the walk/camp were :- Sophie, Jess, Emma, Shannon, Megan, Tom, James, Euan, Ryan, Jack, Alex, Ollie, Dan, Matthew and Bradley.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, as expected. Akela did some "trolley rage" at the local Tesco and discovered that while they claim to be open 24hrs this is only true for some parts of the store. The fish counter had time locked tills and was unable to serve Akela with the fresh fish that he wanted until after 08:00. This done Josh, Akela and Hathi met at the Scutt and took the trailer and other kit to the campsite. They returned to the Scutt for 10:30 where the Cubs and their parents had assembled. The Cubs and Leaders were transported to the starting point in Pensford.

From here we walked across Pensford meeting some of the local idiot inhabitants in a Ka. We were soon off-road, at which point Akela, as usual in these circumstances stopped leading and required the Cubs to navigate. Before this the Cubs had to put on some "camo-paint" to get in the mood. Only one Cub wussed out and I'm not going to name names so your secret is safe with me Ryan. The Cubs that could work out our correct location and direction of travel were rewarded with sweeties. Naturally the first direction picked by the Cubs was wrong which provided a little light relief for the Leaders.

After a couple of fields and crossing a few stiles we reached the "half way" point, at the edge of Lord's Wood. Here we stopped for a spot of lunch. After making sure that we had left nothing behind we entered the woods. It was nice under the trees as it had become quite warm in the September sunshine. Each fork in the path caused some discussion about which route to take and bless them the Cubs were right every time, sometimes without any prompting at all.

After what seemed hours trudging through the wood we had our first and only OOB experience, naturally it was gobby that managed this. A short time later we found the bridge we needed to cross to get to the camp site. We had arrived.

While we waited for the cooks to arrive with Akela's car keys so that we could get the tents out we unpacked the trailer. The cooks arrived and the mess tent was put up, while that was being done the Cubs were attempting to put their tents up. Not a pretty sight and one that nearly drove Akela to using strong language. The younger Cubs weren't experienced enough to just get on with it and the older Cubs said "What's the point?" and didn't help.

Once the Cub's tents had been put up, the Leaders tent was put up a fair distance from the Cubs tent. The Cubs were sent off to get water and wood, much later they returned with a few sticks so a Leader went with them to make sure that enough wood was collected. After tea, which was pasta with or without cheese string, a sausage and either baked beans or spaghetti rings, the Cubs were split in three, sorry, split into three groups, each was sent out to make a bivvy for the older Cubs to sleep in. These varied in size and construction but all looked suitable and quite cosy.

 As it seemed likely that we would not get much time for fun the following morning, due to an early pick-up time, it was decided that the long slide would be brought forward to tonight. The plastic sheets were laid out and were found to be a bit shorter than expected. This was due to some of the Cubs using them as 'Granny sheets' in the bivvys. Still we continued to soap and water the slide. The gasps of shock as the Cubs hit the cold water on the slide were music to the ears of the Leaders. After about five goes the Cubs were rinsed off and sent to their tents to get dry and dressed.

Now the clean Cubs could do the next activity, Backwoods cooking. Potatoes were put into the barbie and the Cubs added chocolate to bananas and oranges. Stew in a bag was also on the menu as was fresh mackerel. One of our Cubs was a bit homesick and was invited to help Akela with cleaning the fish. This turned out to be a bit more than washing it as all it's wurglies had to be removed. This the Cub did with amazing enthusiasm getting his fingers deep into the guts of the fish and removing them. Lovely!! The fish was wrapped in wet newspaper and put onto the embers, a period of waiting followed.

The Cubs that had picked up a football finally noticed that something interesting was going on and joined the backwoods cooks. More chocolate bananas and oranges were made, Akela's stew was sent back the first time as it was underdone. Megan's stew was sent back three times as despite being put on red hot coals it refused to warm up. As the Cubs filled up with food it got darker and darker until it was very dark. A game of capture the flag was started and after three goes at defending and attacking the Cubs were told that Akela had gone off and hidden Hathi sent them all off in the wrong direction to start with and it took them a while to find him under the trailer. The second game was a bit shorter as Akela managed to crawl into a big patch of stinging nettles. His movements to escape were noticed and he was found very quickly.

While the cooks were making some hot chocolate Akela got the Cubs singing and tickling each other. Shannon and Emma then got up to show how it should be done and got the Cubs singing very well. After the hot drink the Cubs were ready for bed. It became apparent that the older Cubs had decided that they would rather not sleep in the bivvys, this wasn't a problem for the girls as there was only five of them in a standard patrol tent. However there were now ten boys all wanting to sleep in a patrol tent and there was not enough room. We had put in a couple of small dome tents for storage of the Cubs stuff so the older Cubs slept in that, the kit having been moved into the trailer.

The adults then sat near the fire to put the world to rights and waited for the Cubs to go quiet, ninety minutes later we were able to go to our own beds. At this point the male Leaders discovered that it is a lot easier to put their camp-beds together when it's light than later in the dark. Hathi had just returned from a last visit to the loo and was undressing when there was a voice from outside the tent 'Can I go to the toilet?' it asked so Hathi got re-dressed and waited at the boys tent for the returning Cub so that the tent door could be fastened properly. Then back to sleep for the Leaders, until Akela being the lighter sleeper was woken up three times by Cubs who needed to go. It seemed that as the Cub returned and settled in his sleeping bag, he woke another Cub up who then found that he needed a visit to the loo.

At 05:30 the first Cub woke up followed very closely by the rest, Akela waited for them to go quiet, as they had done on Summer camp but this time they just kept going. As we were the only group on that side of the field he decided to let them get on with it and went back to sleep.

Vicky and Carol found that the new tent they slept in needed to have it's seams waterproofed the hard way with a small lake forming in the bottom of the groundsheet. Shame, perhaps they should have read the instructions and not relied on their men-folk to put the tent up.

Getting the Cubs up and prepared for breakfast took exactly he same time as it took to prepare the breakfast. Akela then had to cook the black pudding himself as the cooks refused to touch it. We had a special duty to perform this morning, Tom was enrolled surrounded by Cubs in a tent in a field something that he may remember for a while.

The rest of the morning consisted of sorting everything in the trailer, drying the tents and groundsheets and putting everything away ready for the parents to pick up at 11:30.We just made it by packing some stuff into parents cars.

Back at the Scutt the tents were laid out on tables and chairs to dry and air, the Cubs went home to have a rest, the Leaders had a debrief in the Harvesters.

Thanks to all the parents that provided transport for the walkers and to all the parents that picked up their offspring. Jack was the only Cub that nearly had to left behind. Thanks to Carol and Vicky for cooking and helping, it couldn't have happen without you, Thanks to Shannon and Emma for doing the singing and finally to Akela for the weather. Several parents commented on the beautiful weather and how lucky we had been, personally I don't think luck has any part of it but what do I know.