Friday September 2nd to Sunday the 4th 2011.

Ryan held his Explorer / survival camp at Hawequas. All but one member of my patrol was invited to attend this camp. I thus decided to help Ryan instead of either having my own camp or having a movie night for those who won't be attending.

We all met at the scout hall at 15h30. After having forgotten my consent form (again) and sorting the admin out. All the last minute cancelations and forms the armada left for a weekend of scouting activities.

After arriving at the campsite we (Ryan, Brian and I) took the campers down to the river which will be their homes for the next 3 days.

They were tasked with constructing their own shelters to sleep in for the night and instructed on how to make some memorable backwoods food. Fires and cooking badge would have come in handy at this point.

The next day was Corn flakes and rice crispy's for breakfast. After which there was a nice handicaped awareness trail (H.A.T) with a few added dead ends for some extra confusion.

Two ways to find north during the day was also taught during the HAT.
For the rest of the day there were two big events planned. Marksmanship and water filters.

Before lunch water filters was handled by Ray. After lunch was target shooting with an air rifle. To get the marksmanship interest badge one has to get 80+ on an international air rifle target from 10m. This proved to be quite the challenge for most of the scouts. All the scouts that had a second attempt made it through to the next round to be held at the scout hall another time.

After a nice free time session to prepare some skits with a baboon scare thrown in for some action. It was time for the campfire. This time the fire was lit using a toilet roll on a string (on fire of course). The wet wood never really got going so mostly leaves were burned.

I headed home after a nice hot chocolate and jokes session. I missed the clean-up session but in the process missed a lovely breakfast cooked by Rob.