Troop Summer Camp 2020 Part 2

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… oh wait hang on! It wasn’t that long ago or terribly far away, although the drive felt far… Star Wars theme music…

SUMMER CAMP 2020!

Friday, 3 Jan:

We arrived at the Sea Scout Base and the first thing we did was to get boat 22 onto the trailer. We then opened the other shed and heeeeaved the trommels out. Then we carried the tables out. We checked all our cooking equipment and packed the gas bottles in the wooden trommels which we packed onto the other trailer. The morning was very busy collecting all the equipment. We finished up and headed home.

Saturday, 4 Jan:

We woke up bright and early, uniforms on and headed for the Sea Scout Base to pick up the trailers and put everyone’s personal kit into a trailer or car. We did have the dogs with us, so we exercised them before we left and gave them water as they were very hot. Our dog Patch was behaving like a whack-a-mole in the car, who kept needing to be told to lie down! He was so excited. We had a few stops to refresh and eventually we reached a gravel road which was very

B U M P Y!

Eventually we arrived at the Mango Farm gate and drove inside where we saw 1000’s of unripe mangoes.

We arrived at a BIG sloping campsite next to a HUGE dam. Then we fell in… no not in the dam… we fell in to our patrols and were told to pick a spot and set up our tents after lunch. When the work was done we swam.

Sunday, 5 Jan:

In the morning, we set up the army tent for some shade, which seemed to take light years to set up! After breakfast, we were told to prepare for Scouts Own which we all joined in with in the shade of the army tent. We took the life raft down to the dam to inflate it. It took a LONG time to inflate with the foot pump, and we eventually used the compressor with Connor’s car, which was quicker. We then launched it and had a refreshing swim.

Monday, 6 Jan:

We put up the other army tent down near the dam for shade there. Once that was up we made our raft, which took a while: 10 poles, lots of ropes for square lashings, and 6 barrels. Voila!!! Our mothership - A raft!!!

We helped our patrol leaders with their First-Class meals that evening, which took ages and I was HUNGRY and very tired! The dumplings and chicken were delish!

Tuesday, 7 Jan:

The day started with PT. We needed a rock each for our exercises.

After that we pulled the rafts to the other side of the dam and made a giant stick figure out of rocks on the other shore. Then we brought the rafts back, which also took light years, and had hot dogs for lunch. We then sat in our patrols in the shade of the army tent and practiced knots. After that we swam and then collected wood for the bonfire, which we had that evening after some really nice spaghetti bolognaisse.

The bonfire was hectically hot and fun.

Wednesday, 8 Jan:

We had PT again that morning with our pet rocks. We went out sailing

later and got stuck in irons a few times. After lunch Stan set up some pellet shooting where we shot at plastic bottles and a paper target. We actually hit the targets, unlike the storm troopers. That was really fun … peeuw peeuw!

For supper, we made our own pressure packs. It put pressure on us to keep track of which pack was ours.

After that we went on survival night… there and back again… a Hobbit’s Tale! We set up tarps with staves and ropes that we brought, or dug ditches with stones. We slept well under the stars, and I was glad that it didn’t rain, although I had a plan for that if it did.

Thursday, 9 Jan:

We sat up, packed up, wrapped up and left our temporary camp and walked back to the main camp.

We cooked up our French toast when we got back, very hungry hobbits we were. That day we swam and then sometime during the swim someone on the shore yelled: “There’s watermelon!!!” and I do like watermelon. It is delicious!

For lunch, we fried fritters which were very yummy.

In the evening, we made dutchie pizza which was scrumptious!

Friday, 10 Jan:

We made pancakes for breakfast, packed the boat away and started packing things into the trailers. We had a final swim and in the evening, we had pot bread and kebabs and some salads for supper. We had the campfire that night with skits and songs and more skits and songs and what happened next? Oh, I remember, more skits and songs! It was fun and then we made smores. I sharpened a stick to cook my marshmallows on. Then we went to bed under the stars, because we had already put away our tents.

Saturday, 11 Jan:

Guess what we did! Two things… pack… and … go!

This took a while to get everything loaded and then we had Flag down, for the last time on camp. I felt relieved when the packing was finished. I could then sit and do nothing for a few hours, in our car. When we got back to the base, we packed everything away and went home!

Our dogs didn’t ask for a walk for the whole of the next week!