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Explorers take adventure to a new level - 12/07/2011
On Friday 8th July 12 Explorers headed down to Gilwell Park, the home of Scouting, to take part in national annual event: Gilwell 24! This event was open to all Explorer Scouts and Guides aged 14-18. It was well and truly a camp not to be missed!
Gilwell 24 is an event that’s a 24 hour long day of activities and challenges running from 09:00am on Saturday morning straight through until 09:00am Sunday morning. Explorers set off from Golcar at 6pm and drove down to Gilwell, hitting road works on the M1 and the Silverstone traffic. It was 12:30am when we finally arrived on site. We set up camp and got some much needed sleep for the adventure ahead!
The following morning the challenge began! 24 hours of non-stop adventure! With an atmosphere similar to that of a Jamboree, we all gathered in the arena for the Opening Ceremony. As the clock struck 9:00am off we went to book on our first activity. Throughout the morning there was Mountain Boarding, Flying Trapeze, Quad Bikes, Fishing, Bushcraft, Parkour, Simulators, Power Kite Flying and Brush boarding.
We met back at site for a buffet lunch before starting the afternoon activities, in the afternoon the fairground opened, Arena Displays, Scuba Diving, Laser Clay and Raft Racing were all on offer. After a long afternoon of adventure we met back at the site for an evening meal of Corn Beef Ash (camp classic!).
The evening activities commenced with a disco till 2:00am and a cinema open till 6am! We watched the sunset over Gilwell Park at 9:30pm, which turned into a water bomb fight as Brighouse Explorers crept up on us with a massive sling and launched water bombs into the crowd! Throughout the evening Explorers were partying hard in the disco or catching a few hours sleep in the cinema tent! We met again to watch the Sunrise at 4:30pm. There was also a Night Zorbing activity going on which looked amazing but with a massive queue.
By this time meal times were a little confusing as you’d expect! We had breakfast/tea at 8am before heading up to the closing ceremony in the arena. Out of the 12 Explorer that attended, only 4 managed to stay awake throughout the 24hr challenge and had a survival photo in the arena. We then decked the site and had a quiet and peaceful journey back up to Huddersfield.
Be sure to check out the full photo gallery here.
