Day 1 (Thursday)

We left the Scout Hut at about 9:20am. After 3 hours of feeling hot and exhausted we arrived. We walked to the area that we were going to use. We all lay on the floor hopefully thinking that we could stay there all afternoon, just lieing on the ground, but within 2 seconds of lieing down, the leaders came up with the truck and surprise surprise!!! We had to empty it. Because the leaders were feeling generous, they let us eat and rest for about 20 minutes. After lunch we unpacked and set up camp. Each patrol had to set up a mess test and a patrol tent. Also each patrol had to set up a patrol area, consisting of 4 areas: wood area, cutting area, cooking area and general area. The general area is for washing up etc. We lined each area with staves and sisal. That took us to dinner time. For dinner we had a choice of pasty, steak and kidney pie or chicked and mushroom pie, with potato and peas. For dessert we had angel delight which was delicious!!! We ended the day with sports, a wide game and then supper. Then it was lights out. - Falcons Patrol.

Day 2 (Friday)

After we all woke up for 8.00 on Friday morning, our first rota started. We cooked our breakfast (bacon, eggs, spagetti hoops) while some had cereal. Our first activity was building gadgets for our area. We made an entire gateway, complete with knocker, a washing stand and a washing line. This took all morning, so we were happy at lunch! After a healthy lunch of sausage rolls, pork pies, a selection of salad and crisps, we started the afternoon. We played water sports, first having to try and get water into a milk bottle over your PL (everyone got them wet!) and then sliding down a soapy wet slide. This lead to a couple of minor cuts, so it stopped, and we started a sports game of rounders. After everyone's evetful innings, we went for a tug-of-war. Out of all four patrols, Bulldogs and Eagles came though, but narrowly lost to all the leaders! Afterwards we had tea. We cooked and made a pasta delight. After a delicious yet messy tea, we had archery in the growing darkness. While each patrol had archery, the others had free time. After supper it was an early night (10.00!) and gtting ready for the next day, the trip to Swanage. After an eventful day, we were all happy for a wink of sleep. - Bulldogs Patrol.

Day 3 (Saturday)

The day started with an earlier wake up time than usual, at 7:45am, when we all got up and ate a breakfast consisting of cereal then scotch pancakes, which we loved (especially the treacle!). After washing up for this, we started to prepare for the day ahead. We needed: our wallets (which I forgot), our swimming trunks and towel, sun cream and a water bottle. Once we had packed and had flag break, we left on a 1.5 hour journey to Swanage, where we would do climbing. We parked in the park's carpark and everything seemed ok. Then we walked to the cliff edge and when we got there I and a few other people were petrified. Eventually most people made it up the climb and there was a real sense of achievement! Next we went to Swanage to walk around and have some delicious Fish and Chips! After this we went to the beach and made snadcastles and played volleyball in the sea. We then had sandwiches and travelled back to camp, had supper, and dozed into the land of nod! - Bulldogs Patrol.

Day 4 (Sunday)

I woke up at about 7:50 and just lay in for 10 minutes until the leaders woke us up. Then we got dressed and got up for breakfast. After we had had cereal we started our fire for omelets (cheese and mushrooms). After we had eaten and washed up we had about 45 minutes until we had a full kit inspection, so we had to get a move on. 40 minutes later we had nearly finished but it was a real challenge to get ready, but we just finished. We got a lot of extra points but we lost a few too. Over all we did quite well. Then we had lunch: chicken and salad. After we had washed up and dried we did camp skills and I did knife and axe, so now I can chop up fire wood. Then we went and planned for our hike, like how far we are walking and what we had to pack. Then we got on the minibus to go canoeing. When we got there we got geared up and got on the water, the first half went in for an hour and the second lot went in for an hour. When both groups had finished we came home and had tea - salad, sandwiches, and crisps - and then we went to bed. - Kestrels Patrol.

Day 5 (Monday)

The day started early for the seniors with us rising at 5:30am to get our breakfast. The sun was rising fast making beautiful patterns of light in the sky. We had risen early to start our hike and hopefully finish our day's walking before it got too hot.
We set off at 6.00am and after 1 minute we had our first break. The next highlight was when we got into a boggy region and had to wade through a lake covered by vegetation. Our boots and socks got extremely wet. We arrived at the town desparate for a drink, but to our disappointment the only store was shut down. Sadly we dragged on down the road.
The sun was heating up fast so picked up the pace to at least 5km/h. We rested for 20 minutes under an underpass in the shade. After restocking on liquids we maved on, the time was only 10:30am.
We walked through a mixture of cool woods and hot scrublands taking lots of breaks, and we arrived at the campsite at 2:30pm, but we could have arrived at 1.00pm! - Bulldogs Patrol.

We all woke up (except for the PLs who had left at 6.00am) and got dressed and cooked breakfast. The junior hike group cooked on fires and the two higher groups cooked on gas because they had to leave earlier than the junior hike group. At about 10:30am we left, and at about 1.00pm we had lunch which was a selection of sandwiches and crisps. After lunch, the juniors started their hike and the rest of us continued the hike. After 6 miles (and 5 miles in the morning) we had finished. Feet hurting and paining muscle, we set up the hike tents and used trangias to cook pasta and sauce. After dinner tuck shop was open and then we all went to bed. - Falcons Patrol.

Day 6 (Tuesday)

We woke up, got dressed and went outside, where all the other scouts were putting down their tents. We put down our tent and packed it up. Afterwards, we got our breakfast of cereal bars and bread and jam. We packed out bags and waited while the seniors and the other 2 groups started their second part of the hike. We did a litter pick and then set off for Braggars Wood. Our first checkpoint was the underpass where I had left my bottle of orange squash. We hiked a bit further until the leaders let us have the walkie talkie and we took turns in navigating. We hiked for about 2km more then came to the deer sanctuary and had a look. Afterwards the leaders bought us all an ice cream. Then we set off again and met up with the other groups for lunch. We ate lunch and set off again about 5 minutes behind one of the other groups, but in the end we finished two minutes after them. We got in the minibus and went back to camp. We then soaked our feet in our paddling pool until it was dinner time. We had gammon, potatoes and tomatoes. Then we did the sports competition. We did long jump and press ups. After that we had flag down and played a wide game which involved crawling through bushes and turning a light off. We came back and went to bed. Most of us slept outside and we saw several shooting stars. - Eagles Patrol.

Day 7 (Wednesday)

We woke up and started to make fires for breakfast which was backwoods cooking. We had bacon, sausages and bread. Some people put bread on their sticks but it burnt. It took quite a long time but it tasted nice in the end. After breakfast we had an inspection in which we bet all out hygine points that we'd have at least two clean tea towels and we didn't. After the inspection we played a game with the 2 vortexes where one person from each team stood at each end in a square and all the other people had to get one of the vortexes to the person in the square on their team. In the end we won. After the game we lit the fire for lunch, which was sausages, beef and gammon kebabs. Half way through cooking lunch the seniors arrived. Then when we finished lunch the seniors went shopping and we did the assault course which was fun. When the assault course was finished we started to make our mortar. once we made it we had to fire them and see which patrol's went the furthest. ours went the furthest by quite a long way. When we finished the mortar the seniors arrived so we started masterchef. For starter we had french bread, soup and cream. For main course we had stir fry. For pudding we had raspberry torte. After masterchef we had a quick inspection then we had a campfire. Then we went to bed. - Bulldogs Patrol.

On Wednesday the whistle blew at around 8:10 se we got a lie in. We had to make really hot embers for our fire because we were doing backwoods cooking. Everybody had to cook sausages and bacon on a stick and it was surprisingly nice. After breakfast we washed up and it was nearly time to start preparing out lunch which was going to be kebabs. After a quick paddle in the paddling pool , we had to cook lovely kebabs which were beef, sausage and gammon with loads of salad. After we finished, the 5 PLs returned from their hikes and had their lunch. After lunch all the juniors had to do the assault course in patrols while the PLs went off shopping for the masterchef competition. Our patrol won the assault course but we were still 30 seconds behind the leaders team! After the assault course we made missile launchers. Bulldogs won the actual competition but afterwards we found out that we could win easily if we made it longer. When the PLs got back, we had to start preparing for masterchef in the evening. Out patrol had lemon and pepper chicken goujons for starters, then beef in redcurrant sauce with mixed vegetables and finally a strawberry and raspberry trifle for pudding. It was all delicious and it paid off because we won! After all our washing up and another inspection, we went down to have a really good campfire before having supper and going to bed. - Eagles Patrol.

Day 8 (Thursday)

We were lucky to have a bit of a lie in on Thursday morning because the we got at at 9:30am, when the leaders shouted at us because they were getting hungry - as usual! After we got a good fire going, we made black pudding, tomatoes and fried eggs which was surprisingly nice because I had some black pudding for the first time and it was lovely!
After all of the washing up was done we started some of the Sports competition. Finally, the football competition kicked off between my patrol, Eagles, and Kestrels. As usual we got off to a bad start in the football, losing 4 - 2 to them. While other matches were being played we went and did the 100 meter sprint. My patrol won this quite easily and I got the second fastest time behind one of the other PLs, who was over a second ahead of the rest of the field. Later on we finished the football competition apart from one match between Kestrels and Bulldogs, the result of which would decide the winner of the tournament. Either Eagles, Kestrels or Bulldogs could win, depending on the score. Falcons were out of it because they lost all their matches!
Lunch was cooked centrally for us around 12pm and it was lovely. We had chicken in sauce with chicken noodles. After all our washing up and tidying we set off almost immediately for Bournemouth in the pouring rain, expecting a dismal afternoon's shopping and swimming. We were given an hour to go shopping before meeting up to go swimming. The swimming pool was really good because the wave machine was really big and the slide was great!
When we got back to camp we had steamed puddings with custard. We left all of our washing up till the next morning and went to bed really tired. - Eagles Patrol.

Day 9 (Friday)

We all woke up at about 10 to 8 and got up straight away and had fruit juice and cereal. Then we made our fire and cooked bacon, egg, mushrooms and fried bread. After breakfast, we played football for the sports competition, and beat Kestrels. Then we had to play Eagles to see who would win the whole thing, and we beat them winning 3 - 2. I scored the winning goal, but it was a team effort. After lunch, we moved all our stuff into the mess tent and took the pegs out of the patrol tent. Then we started the welly-throwing competition but it kept on raining in between. After the welly throwing we took down the patrol tents and mess tents, and then it was time for dinner. Afterwards, we played a wide game - we were going to play another one but there were cows in the field so we had supper and talked around the fire and went to bed in the hike tents. - Bulldogs Patrol.

Day 10 (Saturday)

We packed up and went home - exhausted! - A leader.