Hammock Camp 2007
Tintern - Friday 5th October 2007 - Sunday
7th October 2007
Friday
We arrived at Tintern on Friday evening in the dark. The scouts were split up into three patrols. We gave them their instructions for the evening and told them that they would be marked for all of the cooking, challenges and their behaviour over the weekend. The winning team would be announced at the end of the camp.
The groups set off down into the woods with their hammocks, ropes and plastic sheeting to make their shelters. Most of the woodland is on a slope but there is one strip across the hillside that is reasonably flat which is where we camped.
Once camp was set up some patrols set up their fire areas reads for cooking breakfast in the morning.
While all of this was happening Derek and Ben cooked supper. However the burgers were twice the size of the buns!
The scouts were all sent to bed or should I say hammock at 11ish, although it did take a while for them to get to sleep.
Simon had decided to for-go the hammock and instead went for a tarpaulin and groundsheet combination. This was strategically placed so that there was a tree there to stop him sliding down the hill.
Saturday
The day started at 7:30 for the leaders, the scouts however were up at first light. The first task of the day was to get the fires going. There were certainly signs of smoke from some parts but not fires on the scale that would be needed to last the whole day. All of the cooking for the whole day needed to be done on these fires. After some assistance from the leaders everyone had a good fire going.
Then the first scout made the mistake of uttering the phrase “I can’t find any wood” This was of course rubbish. Just to put you in the picture we are using a hillside woodland which has several fallen dead trees due to the recent bad weather. Plus all of the usual dead wood that you would expect to find in an area of that size. You could say that there was more dead wood on the ground than you can shake a stick at!!
As all of the camps cooking was being done on the fires the scouts couldn’t have breakfast until they had got there fires going properly.
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This meant that breakfast took a long time. Breakfast consisted of poached egg in a bag and bacon on a stick. Poached egg in a bag being a billy of boiling water in a fire with an egg broken into the bag and then cooked in the water. Bacon on a stick is quite self explanatory however one patrol did resort to cooking several pieces of bacon in a mess tin.
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The next task was to do the preparation for the evening meal. This was done in the morning because of the time that the food needs to cook. Tea was going to be chicken, Potatoes, carrots and gravy. This was being done in two different ways.
One of the methods being used was a Hángi Oven. Two groups were given a steel plate to put in their fires that would be used as a hot plate. This would then be put in the ground, covered in some Hessian sacking with the food in a cage in between levels. This was then buried and left for about five hours to cook. |
The other method was the straw box method. This is where all of the same ingredients are put into a large billy with gravy added. The billy was then brought to the boil and then put into the straw box which was covered and then left for five hours.
Lunch was several trout per group cooked in foil on the fires along with some stuffing.
Once lunch was finished me, Paul and Simon set off down into the orienteering course. While we were walking around we placed some useful items like a frying pan to cook Sunday’s breakfast and a small billy to be used for the evening meal.
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After we had hidden the items at two of the points on the course we set the scouts off in their groups to find all of the points and any items that they might find on there way around. The scouts seemed to do the course at quite a leisurely pace but still they didn’t find all of the items that had been left down there for them. This competition took up most of the time leading up to tea.
The evening meal which had been prepared earlier was dug up and revealed. It had worked well, all of the food was cooked and the groups tucked into their meal. Both cooking methods worked well and everyone enjoyed the meal.
This was all happening at 6ish which is very early for a scout camp. This meant that there was plenty of time available for the evening activity.
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The tea challenge was the evening task for two of the groups. The tea challenge involves taking a water filter down to the stream near the entrance of the site and to collect and filter enough water to make a cup of tea. The groups had to then go up to the lodge and build a small fire outside to boil the water they had collected in order to make the tea.
To out great surprise then we went down to check on the groups at about 9:45pm everyone had gone off to bed/hammock.
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Sunday
On Sunday the scout were well rested after their early night. Breakfast was cooked much quicker as the scouts knew to get the fire going as soon as they got up.
The final and probably best team challenge was done by Ryan’s patrol. While this was taking place we did some axe and saw training with the new scouts that had not been camping with us before. So they now all know how to use the axes and saws safely.
The lunch was tuna wraps. The menu and programme for this camp was devised by Nathalie and Mark from Wednesday scouts. It was a very good meal and relatively easy to prepare. Each group were given some bags of rice to heat up to go with them.
Pudding was the backwoods cooking favourites of apples with sultanas and bananas with chocolate and marshmallows.
After lunch the big clear up began. One patrol had been clearing up gradually throughout the day so they had little trouble in working to make sure that there is no evidence of their presence in the woods.
The tidying up of their sites was one of the most important and most discussed points awarded throughout the whole weekend.
Most of the pots and pans were brought up to the lodge so that they could be washed properly with hot water.
Once of the washing up was done the trailer was loaded with kit. We had the announcement that the winning patrol for the weekend was Ryan’s Patrol. Well done to them. Then we set off on our journey home.
Thanks to Simon along with Nathalie and Mark for organising camp. Also thanks to Paul M, Paul W, Derek, Nick and Sarah for their help over the weekend.
Ben George
Photos provided by Ben George and Derek Forward
More photos can be viewed by looking at the camps web album. |
