Posted by Admin | Posted in Camp 2011 | Posted on 12-07-2011
Scout Blog by Mark:
Patrol Hike 2.0
We got up to the call of Nick at around 7 o’clock. The first thing I noticed was the distanced lack of shouts and calls of the ventures. I guessed that they were dumped somewhere completely random and told to get back to site as the same thing happened in Silver Cross (so original). Breakfast was the usual flavourless soggy ‘cereal’ that left me more hungry than before I had it.
Anyway, we soon learnt that we were going on the second patrol hike of camp (and the last hopefully!) Unlike the first one, Enda did not drop us off at a chosen place. (I’m guessing it’s because our patrol got lost briefly on the way back to site on the last hike, or, maybe they’re just too lazy!)
Jack ‘Diggy’ Dignam, our P.L., told us we were going to Loughton (the one with the big Sainsbury AND Subway!) We walked all the way to Chingford (the town/village nearest to us). Nick gave us vague directions to Loughton (but we resisted going on the bus to Loughton, yay, for our honesty!) ‘Surprisingly we got lost right after leaving Chingford be we came across a lady who had a map of Epping Forrest, Chingford and Loughton so we just used the map which took us through the forest. Once we got to Loughton we headed straight towards the library (Guess why?… Erm, the Internet! Duh!) Jack & Paul went into it and were gone for around half an hour and came back with some ‘interesting’ facts about Loughton.
The rest of the time in Loughton was uneventful except Krzysztofs bag flooded with Sprite. We headed back about 2:30pm as Nick gave us a strict ‘Be back for time’ which was 3:50pm, no earlier or no later. We came back through the forest after getting lost twice. We got back at exactly 3:50pm (according to my watch anyway).
Nick told us we had 30 minutes until ‘mystery activity’ (the leaders think the surprise makes it fun, wrong!) Turns out it was a Zip line! (I’ve personally gone on a fair few so I wasn’t scared) Cian Barry went on the Zip line first (he told me to say he wasn’t scared but I beg to differ!) The harness was extremely uncomfortable, but the rush you got from jumping off was worth it. Eric Hyland was the only one to hesitate.
Dinner was sweet and sour chicken (I cooked it). It was OK as everything was Sainsbury’s Basics (English equivalent to Tesco Value) but the fire was amazingly hot so it was a good dinner.
Venture Blog by David, Shane & Ciara:
Oh joy of joys, today the ventures got woken up at midnight by Conor and Enda, just saying, there will be repercussions for them. We got driven to Abington to a Scout field; it was about an hour drive from the site, which apparently wasn’t long enough.
Arriving at the site the Ventures were greeted with a field surrounded by darkness. Armed with only their flashlights they found suitable ground for sleeping and successfully started a fire. Before bed a game of FIREBALL was played. After waking up at 12 the next day the Ventures set out for a long day.
We decided to head towards Cambridge for our hike. We hiked for about 3 hours to Cambridge which is full of people on bikes. We stopped for food at pizza hut… it was class. Danny, Ciara and David decided to head to the train station while the others finished their food, to check train times for getting home. Ciara was on the phone to Kevin for the walk… Hi Kevin! Ends up we could get home by half 7 for £94… as long as we were all 15… cough cough. Firstly we got the train to Finsbury Park. From there we got a Tube to Walthamstow Central and finally got our last train to Chingford from where we hiked to our campsite.
That brings us up to date and I think that it’s safe to say that after a hot shower we all feel a little better than when we set off… Also Happy Birthday Tom :-) (From David) And even though it is not their birthdays Hello Michael and Pamela from Shane and Ciara’s family from Ciara :-) Bye bye for now.