At the start of the school summer holidays, 14 Scouts, 13 Explorers and 14 leaders loaded up the minibuses and the trailer and set off for Forest Camp near Northwich for our first outdoor camp in nearly 2 years!
We camped for 4 nights and enjoyed a great variety of activities, working towards some badges at the same time. We did archery in the forest, experimenting with how far we could stand from the targets and still hit them. We kayaked and paddled on the site’s lake, working on our “Time on Water” and “Paddlesports” badges. Of course, really all the Scouts wanted to do was capsize! We hiked around the local area, passing fields of wheat and cows, practising our map reading skills and stuffing straw into each other’s rucksacks. We traversed the low ropes course, climbing through rope nets, around large dangling balls and along wires.
In the evenings, there were several campfires complete with all Longford’s favourite party games; including black magic and “crossed or uncrossed” (ask your resident Scout or Explorer to show you these!).
Despite the terrible weather forecast, we had 3 days of glorious sunshine before the rain finally hit with a vengeance on Tuesday evening. Still, what’s camp without a bit of rain?!
Wednesday was the last day and we rounded off the week with a trip to a local aqua park, featuring huge inflatable obstacles floating on a lake that can be climbed, bounced on and mostly fallen off of. Apparently this was so good that several people began making plans to return with their families! And then we were back at the Ranche, hanging all the tents up and already eagerly anticipating the next outdoor camp!
