The Eagles Patrol embarked on their second Patrol camp (this time
leaderless) at 19:00 on Friday 27th September. When we arrived at
the camp site, we had three tents to put up - unfortunately, in
the dark! By 21:30, we had three (sturdy?) looking tents erected
and we settled down for a cup of hot chocolate around a gaz lamp
before going to bed.
Early on Saturday morning, the leadership team were awoken by the other boys having trolly races across the site. This unfortunately meant an end to our planned lie-in! We had breakfast (a charred sausageor two) washed up etc. and went through the hike route. The hike was a short eight mile ramble from the campsite... to the campsite?
We set off and before long we were well underway with one Scout having to be held back to stop him crossing the busy A23 instead of using the footbridge. Due to a severe lack of training and lack of experience by the younger boys, the pace was very slow. So slow in fact that we were forced to take a rather large shortcut - almost missing the via point where we were met by Pirate Pete, our ASL. However, we manged to get back "home" in the end.
On returning to the camp site, we lit a fire and cooked dinner - Spaghetti Bolognaise with BRITISH BEEF! Again, due to our lack of food skills (I, the leader, was thrown out of my food technology lesson for burning Rice Crispy Cakes) our beef turned into black ball-bearings - the pasta was nice though... It was a shame that one boy felt ill and was taken home that evening.
As it was getting dark - we ate our hotdogs and retired for the night. At 12.30am, the leadership team was awakened by the sound of canvas falling on top of you... yes, you guessed it.. someone pulled our pegs out. We went out to have a look at our tent before noticing the other tent - it had collapsed. Someone had definitely pulled the pegs out. We replaced the pegs and went back to bed.
After the others having to pull the SPL out of his tent at around 9.30am that morning, we ate breakfast and began to pack away our gear. The phantom-peg-puller-outer struck again and one of the tents was pulled down once again. We chased them off into the woods! Then it started to rain.
By 12.30 we were all packed up and heading for home. All in all it was a good camp and I think that everyone enjoyed it.
David Oxley
(SPL) - Organiser
Daniel Garner (PL) - Joint Organiser
Adam Blowers (PL) - Went Home due to illness :(
Andrew Ruck - The
Nigel Mansell of Trolly Racing &
Chris Almond - "I know there's a footbridge just there.. but
WHY can't I run across that busy Road?"
Pat Thornton - Transport and all of the other leaders for their support.
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