Cub Camp 2009 at Wye Valley

We set off for camp a little late from the green when we found out that the Catmos minibus, which we had booked and checked to take for the weekend had in fact failed its mot. No Bus. 1/2 an hour to departure time. Akala, resoureful as ever, found a replacement in 10 mins - a brand new one from the local ford garage. Great - a bus with a radio, windows that worked and a likelyhood of getting all the way to the Welsh borders
This was our largest camp ever. A party of 30 (& 3 dogs) set off on Friday afternoon for the river Wye on the Welsh boarders. After an excellent few hours of tent pitching (we really are getting better at this!) and camp kitchen set up we settled down to hot dogs and hot chocolate for supper. After being flat out at work all week, the 4 adults lie in their tents that night, listening to the river and the rain and their stress levels fell as they settled into this new canvas world. There were only 4 hours of sleep though before tent 8 (you know who you are cubs!) woke us all up. We’d cooked a full breakfast and cleared up & tidied our tents by 8am leaving all day for tent inspections, hiking, climbing real rocks, abseiling a 125ft rock face and hedgerow cooking. Some cubs were amazing climbers and others showed great courage “going over the top” abseiling. They made wild nettle and garlic pasta and washed it down with homemade elderflower cordial. They cooked lunch on little meths burners, breakfast & dinner on big calor gas burners and supper on a camp fire so they will never go hungry now due to lack of cooking skills. Each tent prepared skits for entertainment that evening which had us all in stitches and we idled away the evening watching the moon rise and the bats swoop and the marshmallows smoulder and burn, idyllic. This campsite has the most amazing natural rocks, swamps, caves and waterfalls which 1st Whissendine have named Frog Fort. It is a cub’s perfect playground, and oh so mucky, Persil should use it to test their products! On Sunday we went to Clearwell caves and had our picnic lunch in a huge underground theatre, one of the strangest picnic sites you’ll ever find. Then we donned boiler suits and hard hats with lights and went deep underground, wiggling through tunnels, squiggling through worm holes and enjoying the complete blackness and silence of this underground world. We switched off all our helmet lamps and tried to crawl a short distance unaided. It was amazing how all your senses focussed on the rocks and other cubs around you.
The summer camp is the highlight of the cub year and it gives children not only the physical challenge of doing new and exciting activities such as caving but is also often the first time away in such an environment which helps them grow in skill and confidence. As scouting is a volunteer organisation, we rely on the help of parents so we give our thanks to Ali & Steve Gorman, without whom this camp would not be possible. Thank you