1st Barnston Scout Group
Barnston Cubs come 3rd in the Tug of war Contest at Cub Camp - Hadlow Fields June 2009
Barnston Cubs win the Cub Skills Competition, May 2009
The Three Peaks Challenge, Saturday 25th April
Barnston Cubs did the Three Peaks Challenge on Saturday 25th April. . You may have heard of the famous Three Peaks challenge/race climbing the hills of Whernside, Ingleborough, and Penyghent in the Yorkshire Dales......well we’re not doing that one (yet)!
Ours was much tougher! We climbed our local three peaks all in one day: Thurstaston, Caldy and Grange hills. That’s a massive 609 feet of climbing!
Our base camp was at Thurstaston Visitor Centre early on the Saturday morning, around 9.00 am. After imbibing the necessary hiking elixir (a.k.a. tea), we set off south along the beach with the ocean rollers crashing towards us close on our right. Then wel turned up on to the Wirral Way – the old Iron Horse motorway - and then branched off through the jungle of the Dungeons. Our first hill soon came into view and the route up it is obvious: it’s a direct ascent of the daunting south face. Bravely we free climbed the route and, as the dreaded winter snow has cleared from the higher levels, we soon reached our first summit of Thurstaston Hill at a dizzy height of 255 feet.
Descending through the forests of Thurstaston Common and Royden Park and then turning west, with the blazing sun now high in the sky to our left, we soon came to our second summit challenge. Covered in trees, Amazonian-like, the 183 feet of Caldy Hill presents a very different sort of challenge. Here we needed our navigation skills to find the track, amongst the many that people from local tribes have made on this height, that will led us to the mysterious beacon –reputedly a signpost to guide strange alien beings from far-off lands.
Crossing the highway, carefully avoiding the stampeding metal beasts, our final challenge will soon came in to view. The final and smallest summit of the day, Grange Hill, at 171 feet, stands Matterhorn-like over the ‘City of the Ancients’ nestling below its western face. A way up can be found on its SW face through a narrow gully viciously lined with the razor-sharp spikes of the local flora. But we made it and courageously emerged at the summit crowned with its strange obelisk to those fallen in battle in past eons. Exposed to the ferocious NW maelstrom, we found shelter in the lee of the obelisk and took on sustenance. We gazed westwards across the ocean to the mountainous country of the Wales people hoping to catch a glimpse of these weird and wonderful folk.
Descending from our final summit, through the City of the Ancients, we turned south and, circumventing the Inland sea, we soon reached the Wirral Way again. With our energy flagging but our spirits high, we returned to the base camp we left, a distant memory many thousands of seconds ago, and where our porters met us to carry us home.
Future events
Sunday 17th May, Wirral Coastal Walk.
1st Barnston (Cubs and Scouts) will be doing this. We’ll be raising money for two charities: a. Wirral Ark Dinghies Project, and b. St John’s Hospice (through the Potter Family appeal)
Our link with Wirral Ark Dinghies Project is through Bob Jarvis our former CSL. Our link with the Potter Family appeal is through me. John (Potter) was my very first boss many years ago. He’s just been told that he has terminal cancer and maybe not long to live.
Community Links with Neighbourhood Police, Tuesday 2nd June
The local community beat officer and PCSO are coming round to our meeting and giving us a talk on the work of the local police in the community, plus they’ll bring the police van around with all the gear, etc.
At the celebration of 100 years of scouting in Wirral at Hadlow Fields in June 2008, cubs from 1st Barnston were given a disposable camera.