Monday 28th July

After arriving safely, all the cubs settled in nicely and had a good night's sleep. Except for the leaders - who suddenly found it a lot louder... Everyone's settled well into camp life. Today the cubs will be building their own fires and cooking lunches on them to give them a little taste of scout life. And hopefully, of non-salmonella infected hamburgers. Later they'll be heading on to Wild Wood nature park, although not to hunt their dinner.

Tuesday 29th July

Although the storms last night failed to wake the cubs, three of the adults proved that they don't listen to their own advice, by standing out in the pouring rain. All, except the still soggy Sandra, Ro and Simon, are warm and happy. Today they tried to experience the limited pleasures of the British summer, with a sand castle competition on the beach. Whilst everyone else went swimming in Faversham, Robin showed that no technology is idiotproof, with his sat nav taking him 68 miles off course, to Gillingham. The cubs have all just enjoyed a fantastic chips and fish dinner, and are looking forward to a drier tommorow.

Wedsnesday 30th July

We went to Howletts Zoo where we spent the day wondering around seeing all the animals, spending our pocket money and eating an ice lolly.

Thursday 31st July

Today we had an early start off to Dover to have a tour of the Secret Tunnels under Dover Castle. We then went and played two games of Laser quest . After another hectic day we topped it off with a large campfire and lots of singing.

Reflections

This was always going to be a challenging camp, being our first camp away from home and having one of the youngest cub packs I have ever taken away. Half of them not having stayed under canvas before!

The transport legistics of moving 70 people to camp, around Kent and home again involved a fleet of 4 minibuses, 1 lorry, 1 van and 2 trailers!

However the children were all fantastic and settled into camp life very quickly. I had thought that the Thunderstorm that we got hit by on Monday night would upset some, but as they all slept through it, it was not a problem. We had to re-arrange our programme a bit as the instructors for air rifles failed to turn up, so i have promised the cubs i will arrange that for them early next term. Having said that we had such a full programme, in some ways it was a bit of relief. The beach was probably the biggest success which we could have devoted an entire day to. We all really enjoyed Howletts zoo and Wildwood Nature Park where we had our own instructor who briefed us on the Badgers and Wolves they had there. We were really impressed at the level of interest shown by the cubs and the intelligent questions that they asked.

The week concluded with a lively campfire singalong which most of the cubs took some part in leading various songs, definately one of our best evr.

My thanks goes to all my adult helpers on camp who, without whom, camp would not be possible. A special thank you also to my young leaders I had on camp, whose energy kept the cubs entertained. 2 of these youg leaders were ex-cubs of mine nd it was fascinating hearing them recount their memories of life on camp.

I have now already started planning our next year's summer camp, so keep Sunday 26th - Friday 31st July 2009 free!

Pictures to follow.