ALL HAIL THE CONQUERING HEROES….

The results of Woking District Scout Lightweight Camping Competition are in and we are proud to announce that 1st Knaphill Scouts came first with a fantastic score of 445 points!

This year 9 Scouts from Knaphill joined 7 other Scout teams and 10 teams of Explorer Scouts on this year’s District Lightweight Competition.

This involved the Scouts navigating a 16km route between Petersfield and Elsted Village on Saturday and 12km route back on the Sunday. Saturday night was spent on the village green in Elsted where the Scouts had to pitch their tents and cook Saturday dinner and Sunday breakfast on trangia stoves.

Knaphill Scouts had two teams entered into this year’s event, a group of older Scouts that completed thisevent unaided completing the Saturday hike in a very good time and arriving back to the finish ahead of time on the Sunday whist carrying all their kit in their rucksacks. Our second team, a group of younger scouts, did the same course with the aid of a Leader shadowing the team.

Here is a report from Scout team member Mark:

‘We all arrived at Petersfield Train Station early on Saturday morning, high on morale.  We did all the pre-hike prep, and we were ready to go.  Off we set, through Petersfield, where despite our best efforts, we managed to get lost.  After some guidance, we then continued to the first checkpoint, which was the biggest distance between checkpoints on the weekend.  We got our energy back up with snacks and then trekked on through the rest of the checkpoints, without any navigational problems.  We did encounter a couple of not small hills though. We completed the 15km hike in good time and arrived at the campsite in good time.

We set up our tents, cooked and ate our dinner, watched some funny Explorer presentations and then went to bed.  After a good night sleep, cereal bar, dried fruit, and a pack of shreddies later, we were packed up and ready to head off again.  Sunday’s hike was shorter (12km) than the previous days.  We comfortably got to the 1^st and 2^nd checkpoints ahead of schedule and then after a little trouble found the 3^rd in a car park.  We had our lunch and then walked 20 minutes back to the station at Petersfield, this was the last bit of walking many of us did all weekend.  I really enjoyed the experience.’

Well done to all involved – a fantastic performance!