Our annual trip to Eastwinds takes place in early November to coincide with Bonfire night.
This year the Cubs that walked down to the Scouting Resource at Eastwinds in the Saint Annes area of Bristol were Megan, Alex, Bradley, Harry, Matthew, Oliver, Dan, James B, Euan, Jack, James K, Jamie, Sam and Josh D. Gemma and her Mum Carol came down later to provide a female Leader role overnight.
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Akela and Hathi had taken the Cubs sleeping stuff down to Eastwinds in the early morning and arranged to meet at the Scutt for 10:30 when the Cubs were due to arrive. Akela's car had been left at Eastwinds so Hathi had the keys to open up the Scutt. At 10:20 he arrived to find a group of Parents and Cubs waiting. He opened up the compound and the hall but nobody seemed interested in going in.
The Cubs were encouraged by Hathi to enter the Hall and they put their day sacks down neatly and waited for Akela to arrive. They did not have to wait long. Akela thanked the Parents that were leaving their Cubs and bade them goodbye, the Cubs were a bit puzzled until Akela explained that we would NOT be using maps on this hike but would have to write out a route that we could follow to get to Eastwinds.
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This proved a lot trickier than the Cubs expected and their routes were expanded in to quite details instructions with the guidance of the Leaders, who would not be helping the Cubs once under way. The maps used for the planning were given back to Akela and we set off. As we left the compound there was a moments delay as the best route to complete step 1 was discussed, sanity ruled and off we went.
Do I have to describe the weather? It was clear blue sky no wind and pleasantly warm, so warm that soon Cubs and Leaders were removing their fleeces and other top clothes. Onward we marched past the School at Brislington onto the A4174. We crossed the busy A4 near Lidl's and waited on the footpath leading up to the trading estate for James K, who had been somewhere pushing musical notes through a trombone.
Once we were at full strength we moved on, it was now mid-day and some of the Cubs were starting to ask about lunch. "Not until I'm hungry!" said Akela so on we hiked. We found the gap through the hedge to Victory Park, just after some half-wits in a car nearly lost control in front of the group. We met a couple of very nice ladies with a youngster in a pushchair who suddenly had a dozen more friends than before.
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 Photo by Akela |
Half way through the park Akela states that "Now I'm hungry!" so we stopped for lunch. Sam was the unfortunate victim of Hathi's rubber egg trick as it bounced up into his face, luckily with no permanent injury. Once lunch was consumed we moved on and the next group of Cubs led us. We had a steep and long hill to climb before we could relax and go through something that was marked on the map as Allot. Gdns. which turned out to be allotments and gardens. This was on the other side of the hill so we descended into the valley with the Brislington Brook at the bottom. We followed the brook downstream towards the sea until we came across Eastwinds.
Once arrived we emptied the Cubs stuff from Akela's car and the boys were given one room and the girls another, the rooms were not very clean and the bunks in the girls room were filled with stuff. This took a while to sort out and after everything was in it's place the Cubs sat down to do some word searches, one really hard and one merely hard, it wasn't supposed to be a competition and some Cubs were a bit upset when teams of other Cubs joined up and managed to complete them faster than the individuals.
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To make up for this we had some running around games outside while it was still light. French Poodle is always popular, the ground was nicely soft so we didn't break any of the Cubs. Jason and Claire, parents of one of the Cubs came down and helped out with a game we like to call 'James Bond 007' it involves an imaginary obstacle course that the Cubs have to negotiate, this gives the Leaders a chance to shout BANG as the Cubs step onto a trembler mine and get sent to the start line to try again. Akela would like like to thank Claire for being his "Mistress of the stream" and something about turkeys that I did not quite catch.
The Cubs washed before a couple of very nice people turned up with some tea for the camp. Dave, Jayne and Callum were very welcome and the chips they brought with them were also welcome. The room nearly went quiet as the Cubs tucked in to their food, it had been a long time since lunch for some of them.
It was well dark when we had cleared the tea things away and the two volunteers picked by Akela had finished helping in the kitchen and judging from the noise outside either a full scale war had broken out or people thought it was time for letting off some fireworks. Akela had brought some sand down and we soon had fireworks being lit, Hathi was surprised by one because the fuse seemed a bit short but he had lit it at the wrong end so he had to jump for safety. The electricity pylon across the train tracks was too good a target so a few rockets were launched towards it, our aim was appalling as the rockets went high and wide. the large rockets were pointed directly upwards and as there was no wind at all two came straight back down, clattering through the tree next to the hall and once onto the road way just outside the fence.
The Cubs Parents had provided too many fireworks for the one night so we only used a fraction of the firepower that we had. We did use all the sparklers though and many were the name 'written' in the air. The Cubs were very good and moved to be a safe distance apart before waving the sparklers so Akela's safety talk had been listened to.
Eventually sated by the display of pyrotechnics the Cubs retired indoors for a drink, some supper and to watch a DVD. This has nearly always calmed the Cubs down before bed and this time it really worked, they went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Who am I kidding - it wound the little . . . darlings up to a fine pitch and the boys were talking, laughing and farting well into the early hours. At 01:30ish it went quiet, and the Leaders prepared for bed, it stayed quiet and so it was a race to get to sleep before the others started to snore.
Morning dawned a bit misty but with the threat of sunshine later. Breakfast was cooked by Akela as the Cubs were roused by Carol and Hathi. They were then properly woken up by having to run in what ever foot covering they had on, to the far end of the garden and back, cold wet grass meant cold wet feet so a photo to record this event was quickly taken, the Cubs were asked to look miserable for the photo and not a single face changed its expression, brilliant!
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After getting dressed and warmed up breakfast was served. This was enjoyed and there was very little waste which was good.
What on earth were we to do next? Clean up the hall! that would be good so the Cubs sorted their kit out and put it neatly in the hall, the bunks were swept, the floor was swept the garden was swept - of all the rubbish including a number of burned out fireworks and a lot of sparklers, To reward the Cubs we went on a little wander, there is a valley just over the road and so we went to explore it. It was lovely or it could have been really lovely if all the rubbish was taken out of the stream and bushes and the grass not cut up by motorcycles.
The Cubs found a nice grassy slope and started to run up and down it, there was a certain amount of sliding and tumbling involved but as there was a space big enough for the air ambulance to land close by the Leaders let them get on with it. After ten minutes the novelty of climbing the hill started to fade and so we moved on, it was a nice quiet walk apart from the 14 noisy youngsters that we had with us. We walked and slowly climbed the slope and found us at the top of the slope we had been at before, so the Cubs ran down it, several times.
 Photo by Akela |
 Photo by Akela |
Naturally as we have some inquisitive young people with us the stream had to investigated and as sure as night follows day a Cub ended up trying to jump the stream. Imagine the excitement as she failed to get all the way across, her scream of excitement drew the other inquisitive Cubs and soon we had Cubs trying to clear the stream. They pulled out a saucepan some piping, a large plastic bag full of evil smelling mud. Now that the landing area was safe the Cubs used the slope to gain enough speed to carry them gracefully over the stream and into the patch of stinging nettles on the far bank. This is quality Scouting as far as the Cubs were concerned, getting wet and muddy was one of the reasons for coming on this camp (or indeed any of our camps). Getting the water out of Gemma's wellies was fun being little meant that Hathi was able to invert her so that all the water ran out of her boots up her legs. She was so grateful.
 Photo by Akela |
 Photo by Akela |
 Photo by Akela |
 Photo by Akela |
So our party of Cubs returned to the Eastwinds hall, oh dear we thought, we have just cleaned it out and we have some wet, cold, dirty Cubs to get in and change. So as the sun had come out the Cubs removed as much of their wet clothes as modesty permitted and went in to get changed. Shortly after this Parents started to arrive and we were able to see them all off.
Akela and Hathi went back to our Scutt and put away the stuff that we had taken to Eastwinds and then went for a debrief.
As usual this event would not have been as good with out help from parents, so in no particular order thanks to Jason, Claire, Jayne, Dave and Callum. Being able to take the female Cubs on camp was made possible by Carol coming down to spend her Saturday night with two very strange old men, so a big, big thank you to her.