Scouts adventure camp and Founder's Day
The 'Le Mans' style start in choppy seas at Browns Bay Beach
C
oatesville Scout Group is back in full swing for 2019 with our Keas, Cubs and Scouts enjoying the fantastic warm, dry, summer for outdoor and water activities. This month our Scouts have had two raft building and paddling practices at the reserve by the river in Riverhead and a practice at Browns Bay beach combined with a fish and chip dinner. With several new Scouts having to learn knots and lashings to build the rafts and then having to learn to be efficient paddling teams, our prospects for the Founder's Day Raft Race looked uncertain at best. Founder's Day, the annual celebration of Baden-Powell’s birthday, sees about a thousand Keas, Cubs, Scouts, leaders and parents attend Zone Competitions at Browns Bay Beach each year. Rangitoto and Mahurangi Scout Zones (covering the area from Wellsford to Devonport) combine to hold this event. Our Cubs had had only one practice for their model raft building, but all had managed to learn their reef knots. A dozen Cubs turned up on the day, had a load of fun, and two model rafts were built for the floating competition but
unfortunately, we didn’t place in the medals. Our 10 Scouts, with the help of two from Puhoi, built two rafts within the hour allocated. Both looked extremely well made, solid and sea-worthy, so our practice sessions must have been worthwhile. A “le Mans” running start saw 30 rafts plunge into a choppy sea and attempt to paddle out and around buoys before heading back to the beach. Both our rafts held up very well in the water, unlike many that fell apart upon hitting the waves, and both crews finished the race inside the first 10 home. With most points being awarded on the beach for design, teamwork, leadership, knots and lashings, we had to wait until prizegiving before we found out that our crew, ably captained, by Toby had won third place, with Alexander’s Call this farmland...
12 | THE COATESVILLE CHRONICLE | MARCH 2019
crew finishing a highly commendable seventh. A really fantastic effort by a group of new, young Scouts well led and mentored by a couple of our experienced seniors. We held our first “Survival Camp” for many years at the end of 2018. On the first Friday in December seven Scouts and two leaders set off from the top of Glenmore Road carrying all their gear for the weekend and hiked cross-country to Mahoenui Valley Road and camped on the edge of the scenic reserve. The hike was a lot more difficult than anticipated as much of the land we crossed was overgrown and we often had to beat a path through long grass, scrub, gorse and blackberry. Hike tents were put up before dark and survival rations were the order of the day, but that evening meal never tasted better. The next day saw the Scouts building bivouacs for Saturday night and trying to catch eels for their supper. One eel was caught and fried up as a very tasty starter before another survival ration dinner. Just on nightfall all the Scouts retired to their bivouacs and settled in for a peaceful night in the bush. Sunday was occupied with bushcraft activities, pioneering and rope-bridge building and all Scouts successfully