Youlbury Camp (Boars Hill) August 3002

Every year our camps rotate, one year we would go abroad, the next we would stay in Britain. The Youlbury Camp was in the Youlbury Scout Camp, just outside Oxford.

There we pitched tents ourselves...in the rain and made gadgets out of wood, such as a rack to put our bags on and the WELLY PEGS!!

I do have one memorable memory of our rack being too small for our five, heavy bags and we attempted to make a wooden floor out of bamboo rods...it did not work and for tent inspections we had to put two bags on our neighbouring tent's rack.  Above is a before and after picture of the inside of our tent, impressive!

We had to give our tent a name and because we had a girl named Robin and another who's middle name is Marion we chose "Robin Hood and her Merry Women" and even made a flag! Other tent's names consisted of "Super Stars " and "Groovy Chicks".

We did rock climbing and abseiling, an assault course and initiative exercises organized by the leaders. We made a water proof shelter out of two bin bags and string, which we all five of our tent members had to sit in, while a full watering can of water is poured over us. Also a the leaders made a spider web out of rope which we had to fit all of the Guides through, not touching the rope and only two Guides were allowed through each hole.

On one of the days we went on a walk to Oxford, through a woodland path and we went swimming in a pool there which was great fun..although slightly cold. In the evenings we cooked our own meals on the open fire which ranged from pasta, to pasta, to potato, to pasta and lots of squirty cream for pudding! Actually the food was really tasty and on one of the lunch times we made mini pizzas in an oven made out of a shoe box and tin foil. The only disadvantage of cooking on the open fire was cleaning the pots at the end. "Billy Bashing", where we got very dirty and wet scrubbing the black pots with brillo pads!

There were camp fires, singing and great fun evening activities such as plaiting spaghetti and making floatable boats containing blu-tac men. Over all the Youlbury Camp was great fun and we enjoyed every minute of it.

At the end, in our frantic attempt to clear up on time, pegs to clean, tents to take down, bags to pack, it began to rain, hard and heavy so in the end the leaders took everything down after the storm had passed and had to dry them in their gardens before they could be packed away!

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