This year it was decided by the Patrol Leaders' Council that the PL's and APL's should have a special camp of their own. We are the most experienced boys in the Troop and it was felt that we should be given an opportunity to show off all of our training and just "Get on with it!" Little input was given by the [adult] Leaders, the menus, kit, stoves and tentage were all decided on in our groups and we bought the food ourselves. This meant that we only had ourselves to blame if the food turned out less than perfect! Naturally, it didn't!
The weekend started far too early in my opinion at 5:15 am on the Saturday. We loaded the minibus and set off on the 3 and a half our journey to Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island. We stopped at a service station for last minute supplies of chewing-gum, mars bars and the like before arriving at Poole at 8am. We waited patiently for the ferry that would take us to Brownsea and before we knew it, we were standing on Brownsea Island.
We hiked the 1/4 mile to the Scout Camp area of the Island and soon found ourselves errecting our tents on the very site that Lord Baden-Powell held his trial camp for twenty boys in 1907. Before long, the tents were up and lunches were frantically being eaten... down on the beach! Because the Camp was 'ours' we had the chance to freely explore the island so long as we were fed and washed up by 7pm for a Wide Game. Brownsea Island is about 1 mile long and half a mile wide covering an area of 500 acres. The North side of the island is a nature reserve and out of bounds leaving 250 acres for us to explore. Surprising really that most of us ended up at the National Trust shop hankering after a bowl of chips!
Whilst a few people continued their trek across the island, I decided that it was time to walk along the beach and have "stone-throwing-contests". Naturally, I lost. The Island is enhabited with numerous Peacocks who we found were rather partial to Nougat. At one point we were chased by a Peahen and her babies who had realised who their supplier was.
Dinner that night was Pork Stir-Fry and it was gorgeous, although the meat was a little chewy. Guess who did the cooking! As arranged, we played a Wide Game, details of which can be found here.
Sunday breakfast consisted of 'exploded sausage' and 'cooking oil omlette', not forgetting the toast. We had a fitting Scout's Own on the beach after which we toured the nature reserve and we were all lucky enough to see a Red Squirrel feeding. All too soon, we found ourselves back on the jetty awaiting the ferry back to Poole and the journey home.
All the boys and all of the [adult] leaders enjoyed this camp and amidst the traffic jams on the M27 it was unanimously decided that we should repeat the event next year... Watch this Space!
The Scouts and [adult] Leaders that came (in no particular order)..
Phillip Bartley, Paul Beven, Daniel Hawkins, Daniel Garner,
Andrew Ruck, David Oxley, Ben Manifold, Jon Waters,
Alex Dale, Phil Collier, Andrew Catling, Tony Thornton, Pat
Thornton and Dick Ruck.
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