Didsbury Viking Explorer Scout Unit

19th - 27th August 2006

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This summer marked a milestone for the unit, our first full-length summer camp (Kandersteg doesn’t count because I didn’t go), and it was a great week. However only six members of the unit attended, which did make some things easier, such as cooking and transportation, but was certainly nowhere near the number who ought to have gone. I hope to see more of you there next year. Luckily we did have the Frys there to make up the numbers.

We set off, on Saturday the 19^th of August, and made our way to Great Tower Scout Campsite, near Windermere, with Rowan, myself, and Conner making the epic voyage by train. We almost missed the first train, having lost Conner, but managed to hop on just in time to make our way to Oxenholme station, where we almost failed to notice our second train’s arrival, and where I dropped my half of my banana in the rush to get onboard.

By the time we were collected from Windermere station, the others had already reached the campsite. Having heard Keith voice his doubts about the choice of campsite, we weren’t reassured when Josh told us that we were going to be camping in some “God forsaken hell-hole” at the top of the hill, however after a little searching we managed to find a rather nice spot to pitch, with separate areas for sleeping tents and living tents.

Keith 'ploughing' his land rover up and over the hill to our pitch - all with a full trailer!
The weather wasn’t brilliant for the first, half of the week, though luckily we managed to get all of our activities done in the dry, and it was quite sunny by the end of the week.

The week was really quite action-packed. We went climbing on the first full day, which was great fun. All of the explorers took much enjoyment from attempting to climb up a large crack (ha!), and afterwards we all had a go at multi-pitch climbing.

Rowan climbing!

Tom climbing the crack!
On the Monday, we all “went ape,” spending a very enjoyable morning traversing a tree-top obstacle course. I’ll never forget Rhys’ attempt at a perfect landing from the fly-wire; he tried to start running as he touched the ground, only to run out of wire………

David at Go Ape!
The explorers spent the next two days on our over-night expedition. As Ben and myself were aiming to use it towards our D of E Bronze awards, we were placed in charge of selecting a route, and chose a relatively leisurely stroll, from Windermere, Northwards to the Scout campsite at Rydal Hall, via Ambleside. The walking was easy and the navigation was perfect, so we arrived in Ambleside much earlier than planned. This meant that we were able to spend an hour or two of the afternoon in the town, where many of the unit purchased spoons, as most had forgotten to bring cutlery, an activity, which they took a surprising amount of delight in conducting.

However on the walk prior to this, Ben and myself had also begun the other major requirement for our D of E.

We had to have a purpose for the expedition other than simply completing the route; we would have to collect data of some kind and make a presentation on our return. With very little time to prepare, and being a little more pre-occupied with planning the route, we weren’t able to give it an awful lot of thought. After surprisingly little deliberation, we had a stroke of genius. Dancing. We came up with a completely useless hypothesis: that “people we meet along our route shall find our dance both amusing and enjoyable to watch”, and set off to gather our data. Gathering this data was very simple, we stopped people we passed, danced like crazed lunatics in front of them, (whilst I sang) and asked them to describe our dance in one word. The feedback was mostly positive, with the following being only a few of the words mentioned: interesting, surprising, brave, unusual, very good………and crap.
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Rydal hall was a very nice campsite to spend a night at. After a highly nutritious and tasty meal of super-noodles, during which I managed to set myself on fire a little bit, we went off to investigate the “Plunge Pool.” It was a wide shallow pool, in a freezing cold river, in the bottom of a little, narrow ravine. We all went down to the pool, and we braver ones amongst the group went in. It truly was some of the coldest water I have ever swam in, and after a few minutes we all scrambled back up the wet slippery rock and across to the showers to warm ourselves up. Halfway through the week, this was Connor’s first visit to the showers. The showers were luxuriously warm, and we were all quite amused by the fact that we managed to flood the shower room.

The second day was just as eventful, when a mile or two into the walk, Rowan noticed that a tent was missing from her bag. We were all at a loss as to where it might have fallen off, with none of us having seen it fall. We immediately began retracing our steps, but as we had been walking over a steep hill, absolutely covered in tall ferns, we knew finding it would be difficult. Having scoured the hillside for over an hour, growing ever more frantic at the prospect of having lost a tent worth over a hundred pounds, we eventually started to completely retrace our steps; all the way back to the campsite if necessary. Trudging back down the hill that many of us ended up climbing 4 or 5 times, we weren’t optimistic about our chances of finding it. At the bottom of the other side, Conner turned down a path that we had briefly started down, before realising our error in navigation. As he passed beyond the furthest point that any of us had reached, the rest of us began to call him back as he disappeared round a corner, only to see him reappear proudly carrying a tent. We can only assume that it rolled down there from the pathway above. But after over two hours searching, it all turned out dandy, and we continued on our trek. We caught the ferry across Windermere (and didn’t even have to pay), which brought our little jaunt to an end.

Thursday marked results day, and we all caught the train back to Manchester to collect them. On Friday, we all went kayaking and sailing on the lake. Whilst kayaking, we all took it upon ourselves to attack a large canoe full of Scouts. They turned out to be vicious little brutes, and they even managed to capsize Ben. Sailing was pleasant, but as there was little wind the big race at the end was painfully slow.

All ready to sail!
Saturday was spent mountain biking; careering down rocky, narrow paths, traversing ditches and flying over ramps. Well that’s what it was like for some. Due to my incredible lack of balance and high-centre gravity, I was chief opt-out, and spent the morning pleasantly riding round wide gravel tracks, through the forest, joined at various intervals by others who’d had enough exhilaration for one day, and eventually by Phil, when he became too faint to ride a bicycle.

The lot of us on bikes!

Connor with a little jump!

The windy wooden paths!
Throughout the week the cooking was excellent, although the time keeping did prove a slight problem to begin with when my team completely failed to realise that we needed to cook broccoli and potatoes with the chicken casserole. The service improved steadily throughout the week, and by the end, you wouldn’t complain if you received the same service in a five star restaurant.

It was an excellent week, and I’d like to thank the leaders for making it happen. Looking forwards to next year’s summer camp. Woooooh Yeeeah! Scotland here we come!