Walking in Wales

This year for Cumberland Cottage both the Explorers and Scouts from 3rd Alton headed off to Wales for our last walking of the season before the weather closes in. I think its at this stage I have to explain that we didn't actully visit a place called Cumberland, and the real Cumberland cottage is somewhere in the Peak District. However the camp that we run at this time of year has become known within the Unit and Troop as Cumberland Cottage.

On Friday evening the masses assembled at the Den, this year saw 2 Explorers, 8 Scouts, 4 Leaders and a parent heading to the hill. After a 5 and half hour journy all the crew arrived and began the search for Bryn Golau, which was found on the other side of a cattle field up a steep hill.

With the early start that was planned for Saturday quickly throw out the window, the group was spilt up into two parties. Party A, accended the hill behind the hut towards Yr Gribbin. After a very steep and challenging climb up to the top the group were rewarded with some magnificant views as they walked along the ridge all the way to Glasgwm. The second party took the minibus along the valley, and started there climb towards Aran Fawddwy, on reaching the top of Drws Bach were greated with some equally impressive views, along with trying to spot the other team but with no such luck. After a quick map reading session it was decided there was no real need to attempt the top of Aran and a new route was plotted which saw Matt fall fawl of some thin moss and go knee deep into some bog. Along with Jonny falling and rolling down the hill and number time, as well as managing to comically slip on the Duck Boards and fall into a thick area of damp peat. The evening heralded a number of round of darts on a very doggy dartboard, a slightly experiental version of chicken hotpot which went down well, but looked more like soup and plenty of anacdotes from the day.

A slightly different day greated us on Sunday with an overcaste and windy day ahead the plans were once again changed and both teams headed for a small car park near Craig Y Bwlch. Before the teams headed off, a long overdue investure happened, seeing Sam move from Scouts to Explorers. With the cermonies and a quick cake break curtosie of Mrs Cranston and Mrs Hamer, the teams set off with the intention of walking back to the hut. In the end Party A managed to do the ridge walk along Cribin Fawr, Craig Portas, Cae Afon and back down toward Dinas Mawddwy. Party B decide due to some very weiry legs to peel off and do some technical map skills, in order to find a track marked on the map in the woods. After dinner a big game of Bolderdash (Board Game version of Call My Bluff) was played with much ammusement was had from the weird and wacky descriptions and the very unique number generator devised by Skip.

With the major walking days finished it meant that we had to move on and start making tracks for home. With everybody pitching in we managed to clean and vacate the hut in good time to get another short walk called the precipice walk near Dolgellau.

All in all a very enjoyable camp and thanks goes to all of the Scouts and Explorer who all got on with the walking and we hope that you all got a great sence of satifaction from the walks and hills that you managed to climb. As is tradition with Explorers, the Prat of the Camp was on offer, however it was decided that it could be extended to Scouts as well as Explorers on this camp. There were many contenders such as Skip (Splitting a 6 pint container of milk over the floor within half an hour of arriving at the hut), Sam (spilling his cereals over the floor, mopping them up and then spilling them again), but the winner from this camp was Jonny Dane (AKA Sandie Tokvic, will let you work that one out needless to say he was the younger of the two Danes on camp!!).

Click on the photos for large image