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Brownsea Island - 31/08/2011
Monday
On Monday 1st August, the 4th Golcar Explorer Scouts set of on an Historic Adventure.
Starting off at the Scout Hut early doors and packing the equipment, which suprisingly didn't take as long as expected despite the huge amount of camping gear and luggage we had to move! And so, with our van packed and our minibus full of excited Explorers, we set off on our first leg of the journey, to Stonehenge!
At this stage I might add that; 104 years ago to the day, the very first Scout Camp lead by Robert Baden-Powell in 1907 took place on Brownsea Island, hence the reason for the date we headed out on our summer camp adventure.
This aside the Journey to Leicester Forest Service Station was pretty quick, just over 2 ½ hours, which meant we were now ready for lunch and a much-needed Starbucks Venti Café Latte!
Before the Explorers could get out of the mini-bus, Akela first read out a letter from Group Scout Leader Craig about performance, teamwork and attitude. This seemed to go down quite well and all the Explorers took on board what was said and overall it improved their performance on Summer Camp and made the experience very enjoyable, as this was my first Camp as a new Assistant Explorer Leader.
The weather was tremendous and was starting to rise above 23 degrees, far too warm for me! We had parked the vehicles next to a grassy embankment that overlooked the busy motorway and was the perfect little picnic area for us to enjoy our packed lunches. Finally after just over half an hour we were back on the vehicles and on our way on the second stretch to Stonehenge.
By now the temperature was hitting 25 degrees, with the windows down and the radio on, everybody was in the Holiday mood, at one point I could swear I could here the scouts singing that old Cliff Richard song…We’re all going on a summer holiday… you get the picture.
After another 2 ½ hours in the sweltering warm vehicles, we reached our destination, and what a site it was! For me it was quite emotional, never seeing Stonehenge in all her beauty in person before. Exquisite!
The leader team were all made to wear sticker badges “Educational Group Supervisor”, I’m not sure all the leaders liked these badges… due to the fact that we are all big kids at heart.
We spent a good hour walking round the monument, taking in information, taking photos and praying, well the girls were more meditating than praying, never the less it looked odd sat on the ground with mine and Kev’s cuddly toy scouting mascots.
By now the Explorers where getting hungry so it was onto our next destination, back into the overheated vehicles and onto “The Campsite!”. Getting to the Campsite didn’t take long at all; once there we unloaded our items needed for our one night stay over at this very nice campsite.
“They have the best cleaning facilities I have every come across”
Matthew Burhouse (Akela)
At this point I should throw in that the Leader team had decided to bring the heavy canvas Patrol Tents for the explorers, after it took them 2 ½ hours to put them up at last use, 60th Anniversary Open Day, we thought they could do with some practice.
By now clouds where starting to gather, after a day of sweltering heat, the leader tent was up with kit inside too. The Explorers were taking their time until I mentioned it would be raining soon! They soon got a move on and did a pretty good job of putting the Patrol tents up. And it only took 45 minutes this time. Still a lot of improvement to go!
For Dinner I had kindly prepared the night before, Chilli Con Carne, both meat and vegetarian. All the explorers had to do was make some rice and reheat the Chilli. I have never seen so much chaos before, Explorers trying to make rice and heating up Chilli was not their forte!
Two of my favorite quotes of the week came from this attempt at cooking, the first being;
“is this vegetarian rice?” & “its not cooking!”
The “its not cooking!” quote was particularly brilliant, as the pan wasn’t even on the hob, in fact it was on the prep table over a foot away from the stove!
After we had our amazing Chilli and mediocre rice! It was time for the washing up, which I must say was done pretty quickly, it was time for our evening story delivered by our resident story teller, Story Teller Ben! The Explorers picked up a lot of information about Brownsea Island for which they would need later for their Theatrical Sketch on Brownsea.
At the close of the day, it was lights out and time for a well deserved sleep!
Tuesday
On the second day we had a 7am rise, I had the job of making sure the girls were up by shouting GET UP GIRLS, TIME TO COOK BREAKFAST!!!! Followed by groans of… “But I’m tired”…
Shock horror the Explorers didn’t go straight to sleep yet persisted to keep the Leaders awake. Giggles all night long…
So breakfast it was, lovely bacon, egg and mushroom sandwiches. Yummy! (We had Quorn bacon for the vegetarians obviously). Whilst we made our breakfast and the tents being packed away in a freakishly quick attitude from the Explorers, others made the packed lunches for the day.
I was particularly impressed as we were now a half hour in front of schedule! Well done Explorer Team!
So onwards and upwards, well downwards, to the coast line and the Harbor of Poole! After a few hours’ drive and Ben bouncing around like a maniac, as he had forgotten to go to the toilet before we left, tut-tut! We finally arrived at Sandbanks, where would get the small Yellow boat to ferry us across the Harbor to Brownsea Island.
Whilst Tina and Ben went and parked the vehicles the rest of the unit made sure everything was packed neatly and properly so that we could get our Patrol tents, food, kit, leader tents, mess tent equipment etc. on to this lovely little boat. I was praying we would not sink this Maiden of the Harbor!
Once on board, out came the mascots for their pictures sat on the back of the boat waving by to Sandbanks, whilst we passed Harry Redknapps - £8 Million home!
Once across the water on our 5 minute journey across the harbor, we landed on Brownsea Island. Already we were taking photos and admiring the views of this enormous harbor! As some may know, Poole Harbor is the 2nd biggest Natural Harbor in the World. Sydney being the first!
We were met by some lovely National Trust Employees one of whom offered to take our Kit the 1.25 miles over to the other side of the camp site and he looked and sounded like Russell Brand, so THANK YOU… would have taken us a life time to carry it all there!
Once over the other side of the Island, we set up camp not 50 feet from where the original Scout Camp took place 104 years and a day ago.
This time the Explorers put up their Patrol Tents a lot quicker, only half an hour this time, I still think it should have been quicker! But anyway they were up and ready for lunch!
Armed with some pack lunches and Explorers without their refillable bottles, getting fluids back in our bodies was proving difficult! So time for a walk to the shops to get some drinks and to re-fuel!
After getting re-fueled it was time to check the beach out and as it was so warm, the Explorers welcomed it.
After a few hours by the stoney beach, it was then time to head back to the site and make a start on Dinner. Tonight’s meal was Spaghetti Bolognaise, well bolognaise and pasta, which was prepared by the girls.
After about an hour of cooking we were all very hungry, so we all sat, ate and then sent the boys to do the washing up, which took forever!
After a short while of relaxing, Ben prepared a ‘Tracking’ & ‘Observation’ skills set. Which Baden-Powell performed 104 years ago to the day.
The idea was to be able to remember types of tracks or footprints on the ground and be able to track down, your ‘prey’ or team or what ever you might need to track down. By looking at different prints in the ground you could tell the direction, and type of movement you target was moving. So whether the target was walking or running.
The observation was my favorite; I and Ben hid a few items in the small wooded area by the camp site. We hid tankards, camp stools, tent pegs and hammers, along with a few other items, and had the Explorers search for the hidden items from a vantage point. The girls team won this event, they were the quickest with the most correct items.
Once the sun started to set, we walked around the empty yet wet beach, the tide being out for the second time today, to go watch the sunset on the western side of the Island.
Kev and Akela took loads of photos of the sun setting; by loads I mean at least 50-60 pictures each, whilst the rest of us enjoyed the near oriental sunset over the harbor waters. It was very picturesque.
By this time, the Explorers, and leader team, were getting a little tired, so supper time it was. A quick snack before getting ready for bed with another early rise to follow!
Wednesday
Today was to be our busiest day yet! We had a lot to get through and limited time to do it in. So it was a really early start for the girls, whom did not like early starts as it was, to get their breakfast sorted and getting ready for the Tent Inspection I had sanctioned the night before.
As it turned out both the Girls and the Boys had done a reasonably good job of preparing for the inspection. A little way off competition standard but nether the less I was pleased at the results.
This morning’s itinerary was a walk around the island and to visit one of the museums on the Island. As I am a keen geocacher, I had prepared a travel bug for the Groups 60th Anniversary. So off we pottered to do some geocaching on the Island whilst walking round. Armed with our first coordinates we set off.
Our first stop was the Commemorative Stone. Here the Explorers had their photo taken, along with the two mascots, we cannot forget them. After a few photos we moved on a few hundred yards down towards our first cache site, BP’s Brownsea Island cache, this cache was the size of a small log, with a screw top lid, a very nice cache!
The Explorers popped in our 60th Anniversary Travel Bug along with a few other Travel Bugs I had collected my self in the previous weeks. We then signed the logbook, 4th Golcar Explorers and were on our way to the next site, a Guide Groups cache, named Brownsea Badge Box. Again we had a few photos of the Explorer Girls putting the last remaining Travel Bugs in, and took a few more to put elsewhere. At this point the Girls had become quite attached to the Travel Bugs as they had little toys on the end such as a Dalmatian, a Meercat and a Camel.
With only one more cache to collect later on in the day, we carried on towards the Brownsea Island Museum, where it was extremely warm! Inside had tons of information about the Island, past owners and not forgetting the wildlife that could be found on the Island. I think the Explorers were over whelmed by the amount of information they where acquiring. The sucked it up though as they knew there was a quiz tomorrow night!
With lunchtime nearing quickly it was time to head back to the campsite before having to head back to the bottom of the Island for the Nature Reserve tour.
The Nature Reserve tour took around 1½ hours to complete, we saw a lot of wildlife, the beauty of the Red Squirrel, the rare and exotic Birds that used the man made bathing pool. We carried on to see many insects, bugs and other outdoor wildlife, such as the Sika Deer.
On our way back to the site we thanked the kind volunteers for showing us around the reserve and headed for the Islands Church, which is still active to this day.
Inside there was a lovely lady that talked us through the history of the Church and it’s role on Brownsea Island. Some of the more artistic Explorers had a go on the original organ that used foot pumped air to play. This was certainly not ‘beautiful music’ as they struggled with the feet and the hands at the same time.
Not long after it was time for a picture in front of the Church, with the sun perfectly beaming down against it.
Now it was time for heading back, the LONG way round the Island, it seemed to take forever! The good news, well for me it was, is that we found the last cache on the Island, Brownsea Squirrel Cache. Myself and a couple of the Explorers pottered just off of the track to pick up a well stocked cache. After signing the log and dropping a Travel Bug or two, it was back onto the footpath for the mammoth journey back to camp.
Once back on site it was time to have a quick rest and toilet break before preparing dinner! The dinner (Tuna bake) took forever to prepare and cook, the boys should not be allowed in a kitchen… whilst I supervised and told them what to do and what not to do, we seemed to be getting no where. With it not blowing a strong breeze and trying to blow the burners out we had to make a makeshift wind barrier by having the Explorers stand side by side in a ‘tight’ formation.
Eventually we did get to eat!
Clearing up really did take forever! The girls and washing up = Chatting and giggling… so it was up to Tina to go and tell them to get a move on.
Before long bedtime was looming and some restless Explorers retired to their tents. Not knowing that tomorrow would be our most strenuous day of the camp!
The time was 1:15 am and it had been raining for over an hour quite heavily, the Explorers were still awake, not sure whether it was the girls or the boys as the rain was getting heavier. Nevertheless I wasn’t going to get much sleep!
Thursday
Come 4:10 am I was still awake, after cat napping for half an hour at a time, I heard Akela say to Kev, ‘Should we wake those two?’ meaning myself and Ben, to which I replied ‘ I haven’t slept yet!!!’
So I nudged by to wake up knowing what was going on, except it was worse than I initially thought!
Some how we had managed to hire some plumbers to create our indoor swimming pool. The Male leader tent was 5 inch deep of water. With a packet of Salt & Vinegar Crisps floating by! Both Bens and mine bags were a little soggy! Okay then Soaked!!!
So up we got and started ferrying our equipment and food to the large mess tent at the top side of our site. Luckily it was disused and able for commandeering. I created a few washing lines to dry our equipment whilst we left Tina and the Explorers fast asleep in their tents. Kev, Akela Ben and me then proceeded to catch an hours sleep on the benches in the mess tent. Soon the Explorers started to awaken, most of which were dry, with the exception of a couple Explorers.
We had them dig trenches around their tents, and lowered the tents an inch to slacken the ropes. Not long after the rain finally stopped, after 7 ½ hours, and started to clear, with sprits a little, drowned, we called off the Get Stuck In activity and resorted to my rainy day activity, Crumpet Making!
The Girls stayed with myself and Akela whilst the rest went off to the museum again, only this time to do some drawings and get information for their sketches and quiz.
As the girls started to get the ingredients out, we soon realised that the milk had gone sour in the heat. So it was time to start put our heads together and come up with a different activity!
For 15 minutes Akela and myself talked about possible activities and then I finally came up with an idea, still cooking orientated. Make shift Apple Pies.
Using the ingredients we already had, Apples and some potted Del Monte fruit pots, kindly donated the night before from our neighbors, we made the filling, peeling and dicing the fruit and stewing down in a dixy.
Now it was time for the Boys to do their share of the work by making the crumble and the putting it all together.
Armed with some bowls the flour, sugar and butter, they began to rub it all together to make the sweet crumble topping.
We then covered the ingredients and put them aside for a few hours, saving this luscious preparation for dessert!
Akela offered to prepare the food for tonight, Corned Beef Hash and more vegetables for the vegetarians.
After dinner the boys were back in the mess tent getting our dessert ready.
By heating the fruit up and placing them in disposable cups and frying of the crumble in a hot dry pan, we soon had a quick delicious dessert worthy of a king!
After a not so speedy wash up, we were ready for the evenings quiz! Tina, Ben and Akela created a 30 question quiz full of very clever and cheeky questions.
Both teams came up with some very good close and exact answers, whilst Akela and me came up with some not so good answers. I think we just wanted a giggle or two after this morning’s swim.
Needless to say both teams did extremely well, whilst the boys won this activity, the girls where only 3 ½ points behind. Well done to both teams!
Once again it was bedtime! Explorers were still awake but for me, after 21 hours on the go I went to bed early and left the rest of the leaders to chat about the days happenings. I am told the other leaders were not that far behind but I never heard them come in!
Friday
With an early rise to get up eat and get packed ready for our trip back to the main land, the Explorers were quick of the mark, to my amazement, they had packed up before the Leaders had finished! I was very glad to see this as we were now an hour ahead of time!
They returned all the equipment that we had hired, back up to the visitors centre, and arranged for our equipment to be picked up and transported the 1.25 miles back to the boat.
We jokingly made the Explorers think they were going to be forced to carry their personal luggage back towards the boat, as some of them seemed to have forgotten how to pack a rucksack! With role mats and sleeping bags dangling from their bags made it very hard to pick up and move them… We will pick this up on a Wednesday before the next camp!
Once back on the mainland, it was time for a trip into Poole, we all went to McDonalds for a much needed fill up on food. On the way back we had pictures taken with the BP statue that overlooks the Harbor. After this short stop we were back on the road to our final campsite before heading home.
After 2 hours or so of traveling we where there! Youlbury! An absolutely fabulous place, with so much to do and explore. No one could get bored!
We set up camp and started on some camp gadgets with me teaching some of the explorers some of my own gadgets and different ways of erecting them. Needless to say, most of them learned something this night.
Akela was on with building a campfire whilst others were making dinner or erecting their bivvies’ and Hammocks. Food end up ion short supply this night as we had a little breakdown in communication… oops. Still nobody went hungry as we still had plenty of food!
After cleaning up the food it was time for a little sit around the fire to talk about the camp so far and get some general feed back. I asked the Explorers what their favorite day had been. Most said when it rained; once again the team work had brought them together and made a very enjoyable day. Teamwork such power it has!
So; that time again. Time to retire for another busy day!
Saturday
Our last full camping day before heading home tomorrow! We started of by having a lovely breakfast of bacon and egg followed by some washing up. The Explorers favorite job…
The morning activity was pedal go carting and what fun we had! There were two go-carts, so one on one racing! My self and Akela tested them out first, just to make sure they where safe for the Explorers to use (a necessary step, I’m sure you’ll agree!)
Turns out they were not, one of the go-carts chains kept jumping off, grrrr. We spent more time putting the chain on than we did riding it. Thank fully after racing and having time trials, we did not have to pay for the activity. Bonus!
After carting we went back down to the site for a quick bit of lunch before taking a bath in the local outdoor swimming pool. Once we got there, we couldn’t figure out how to get in and spent a good 20 minutes driving around for the entrance. Low and behold it was at the first place we parked up. Typical!
So out we got a marched up to the Swimming Pool. Into the changing cubicles we went, one by one making our way to the pool. My o’ my was the water cool. After we were all completely submerged or severely splashed by the leader team, we started to warm up. Turns out it was warmer in the pool than it was out of it!
After an hour and half in the pool, doing lengths having fun and splashing each other like little kids, we felt it time to go back to the camp site and leave the greasy oil slick behind.
On our way back to the Campsite, we stopped off at a Tesco’s to get some Barbeque food and a feast we made of it! Everybody was filled up with meats, quorn, breads and pickles! It was my favorite meal of the camp!
Much later on after the clearing up we had another campfire and had a good old camp sing along with the acoustic sounds of a ukulele and the beautiful sounds of the Explorers Voices, well most of the time. After a few hours of the sing-a-longs and giddiness, once again it was time to sleep. For the final time of this amazing camp!
Sunday
Once we got up it was a triumph to get the Explorers working together as a team to break down the site and get it packed up. Half way there and it was time for our last activity before travelling home to Huddersfield. We were going to visit the Scouting Museum of the Oldest Permanent Campsite of Scouting in the World!
In the museum we where greeted by three volunteers that kept the Museum going, running only on donations. They gave us a little talk on the history of the site and the museum all of which was remarkably interesting, I feel if Craig, the Group Leader went there, we would never get him back.
Inside contained so many Scouting and Guiding badges; over 3200 I believe they said! Amongst all the badge cabinets, was a pressing of BP’s footprint and his wooden stool he used many years ago. There was also a Kudu Horn, which the Explorers got to try out. Not as easy to sound as it looks! Only 3 managed to make it sound!
So now it was time to go back to the campsite and finish decking before our long drive home. After packing up and setting off we made a pit stop at the Leicester Forest Services for another Starbucks for the journey home. Once back in Huddersfield it was a relief to have the parents collect their children so we could all head home for a hot bath and a Sunday Roast!
A memorable and Exciting Camp, I for one would be more than happy to go again.
News Article written by Duane.
Want to see more pictures from the week? Check out the full gallery here!
