Ford and Etal Scouts once again carried on the area's excellent scouting traditions, this time by attending a Water Activities weekend organised by Northumberland County Scouts Activities Coordinator, Paul Henderson, at Hawkhirst Adventure Camp, Kielder.
Eight Scouts and one Explorer Scout from Ford and Etal made the journey alongside Scout Leader, Joanne Hall, and Assistant Scout Leader, Nick Allen, to meet up with Scout and Explorer Groups from all over Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside. Camping in woods just metres away from the shore of Kielder Water added to the whole adventurous atmosphere.
The Adventure Camp, which is run by the Scouting Association, provides the facilities, equipment and expertise for a wide range of water-based activities under the direct supervision of qualified instructors and safety staff. However, this weekend would concentrate on just three of these.
In spite of the wet and miserable Friday night, which could do nothing to dampen the Group�s spirits, Saturday morning greeted everyone with fabulous autumnal sunshine glistening across the tranquil Kielder Water. Peace and quiet was not to last long as the Scouts were about to be let loose like pillaging Vikings hell bent on rampage and destruction! Ford and Etal were grouped with our Mid Northumberland neighbours, Felton and Rothbury, to undertake bell-boating. Bell boats were a completely new experience for the scouts, being like two long canoes joined together in parallel and designed for a crew of twelve. Ford and Etal were joined by Felton Scouts to form one crew and led to a lot of hilarity while the boaters tried, first of all, to paddle in synchronisation and then to work out how to steer. After a little practise, the crew was easily outstripping the Rothbury boat in friendly races. The safety staff were always fairly close by and constantly checking that all was well, but seemed to take great delight in allowing the swash from their speedboats batter the bell boats with an affront of waves.
The afternoon saw a change of activity to canoeing. This involved the open topped Canadian canoe type craft enabling two, three or four people in together. Again, this required all involved to work as a team while developing their canoeing skills. After an hour or so of this, confidence had obviously built and combined with the natural playful spirit of the children led to a lot of capsizing and getting totally drenched. Everyone had a fabulous time.
After a good drying off and change into dry clothes, followed by an evening meal of curry, all from the group joined up with Mid Northumberland Explorers and Felton Scouts around the camp fire for a good sing song and story telling to conclude the day.
The final activity to participate in was Rafting. This meant having to build the rafts first, using pioneer poles and barrels lashed together with rope. This was to be a test not only of the Scout�s rope work but also of faith in their team mate�s ability. Most completed rafts appeared 'sea worthy', but not all! The first few rafts seemed to float well enough and actually provided an adequate form of water bourne transport � but not all. Barrels loosened from the not so good lashings and floated off, and inevitably some Scouts got very wet.
Later in the day, a bell boat race was organised between Scouts and Leaders in which they had to reach the opposite side of the lake, run about 50 metres to a specified point before returning to the starting point of the jetty. The Leaders quickly got to grips with their bell boat and raced ahead of the Scouts. However, the people manning the two safety boats must have had money on the Scouts winning and conspired to sink the Leader's boat by forcing swashes of water over the sides. The boat upturned and all Leaders had to swim to shore. This gave the Scouts the opportunity to not only catch up but to overtake during the time taken to upright and bail out the bell boat. Again, the Leaders managed to power ahead of the Scouts and a famous win was in spitting distance but again they were sunk by a safety boat leaving the Scouts to reach the finishing point first. What a weekend! Fabulous weather, but ever so wet!
