Survival Camp at Quex - 26-10-2010

Survival Camp at Quex. The spitfire Explorer unit held a survival type camp at Quex park during 2 days of half term. We left the scout hut at 8-30am with 2 cars and a trailer with all our equipment to Quex on the Tuesday morning, with the permission of Quex we camped on Bell Field, once the Marquee, tents dining shelter and toilets had been set up the young people set about digging a fire pit and collecting dry dead wood and leaves to get a fire going. Once this had been achieved they then had to collect lots more wood for keeping the fire alight as we intended to keep this fire going for 36 hours, I don't think that they understood at first just how much wood would be needed, but once they saw for themselves how quickly it burnt they soon learnt what was required. Next task was the making of bivouac shelters, first they needed to find a suitable clearing in the woods and then build themselves a shelter for the night after some guideience 5 shelters were built some pretty good for their 1st attempt. They were then shown how to use their knives properly by Badger who then showed them how to skin, gut and prepare a rabbit for the pot. More wood and water collecting and then preparations for the evening meal, to be cooked on the hot embers of the open fire, by 6-30 we all sat down rather cramped in the Marquee due to the wind and rain and ate our meal which consisted of Chicken wrappedin bacon, with jacket potatoes and cheese. Once this was all cleared away badger gave them some instruction on maps and compass work. Then we all sat round the camp fire cooking marshmallows till bed time. Four of them slept in their shelters overnight, I think that they were generally dryer and warmer than the rest of us, well done. Next morning we managed to revive our fire with a little gentle coaxing, bulit it up so we could have some more hot embers for breakfast which consisted of sausage, bacon and egg, which were cooked on a hot stone. During the morning the youngsters were taught how to use their knives correctly and then they continued their work to skin, gut and prepare the rabbits for their evening meal, whilst some collected more water others cleared away their shelters and some helped prepare the vegetables for tonight. Next they were shown how to prepare fish for their dinner and 2 different methods of cooking them, some scewered over the embers whilst others placed in layers of wet newspaper and placed in the embers. Whilst these were cooking they took the tops of an orange spooned out the orange which they ate and then filled the skin of the orange up with chocolate sponge mix, put the top back on wrapped the orange in fiol and placed in the embers, the result an orange flavoured choc pud. With the fish having been cooked lunch was eaten. During the afternoon they were showed how to pluck and gut pheasants. The fire had now been got ready and with a plentifull supply of hot embers a very large pan was put on the fire with rabbit stew in it, meanwhile the pheasants were prepared for roasting and cooking apples were prepared with sultanas and brown sugar for baking. Whilst the tents and some of the other equipment was put away the stew pot bubbled away, the oven was also placed on the embers and the pheasants placed inside, whilst the apples were covered in foil and also placed in the embers. At 5pm we ate a meal of rabbit stew, roast pheasant followed by baked apples, the amount that was eaten was amazing, all obviously throughly enjoyed it. It was now time to break camp and head for home, with the trailer having been unloaded by 7-30 it gave us a chance to discuss our 2 days of survival camp, which on the whole went very well.

Survival Camp at Quex - 26-10-2010

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