Well, this was the newly refurbished 4th Cork Venture's first Camp, in Snowdonia, Wales. Unfortunately for us, Snowdonia lived up to it's namesake. It was FREEZING the first night. I also must apologise to David Daly, he's been asking me all year whether it'll be snowing in Snowdonia, and I told him to stop being ridiculous. I could see his smug little smirk when we arrived.
We intended on climbing Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales the first night, which was postponed due to the weather. We had a day of relaxing and exploring instead. We did go to the local town, which had a some fun things to do. Even though it was freezing, we all bought ice-creams. Seriously, if we get any more badass we'll start getting fan mail.
The second day we went to Alton Towers, which was amazing. Everyone thought the rides were excellent, and even Frank found something he loved. I think most people agreed that either Oblivion or Nemesis were the best by far. We brought a packed lunch with us, but we found a KFC, and that was the end of that.
The third day, we had intended on going to Snowdon, weather permitting, which it wasn't. We decided to go on two shorter walks in the vicinity of our camp. The weather had improved, but it was still pretty windy, and when we returned from our first walk, our marquee had abandoned us, and was sitting placidly in a field nearby, over a barbed wire fence and a large stream. We retrieved the marquee, and reinforced it. We double pegged it as far as possible, and Calszer guyed out the individual upright poles. That night, we had some board games that got a bit crazy. On my way back from the toilet block,over the roaring wind, I heard a hideous bellowing, and I rushed back, thinking someone had seriously injured themselves. Apparently Frank had landed on Income Tax for the third time in row.
We went to bed that night content that the camp had gone very smoothly and according to plan (except for Snowdon). I think anyone who's ever been on a camp knows it never goes 100% according to plan. Well, around 1 in the morning, we heard the wind getting steadily worse, and then, a massive crashing noise outside. All we heard next was Frank. 'THE MARQUEE'S
GONE!!' We all had to get up, and take the patrol boxes, cookers and other assorted bits and pieces up to the main building, where we were able to store it temporarily. We had to take down everyone's tents and gather all our personal gear to bring it to the building. The Marquee was nowhere to be seen . It wasn't the end of the world by a long shot, we were allowed to sleep in the main building. In the morning, some of the Calszer along with some of the lads mounted a rescue mission for the Marquee, which had gotten caught in a tree. It was in bits, but at least we now have some spares for our other Marquee! In hindsight, we thought it might have actually been easier to take everything down that night because the weather was so bad that morning.
Anyway, everything worked out in the end; we annoyed Calszer and Yvonne until we got to go to MacDonalds on the way back. Who says we're childish? We arrived roughly on time, tired but happy. Hopefully this Summer and next year will be as eventful as our first year in Ventures. We would like thank Yvonne for all the hard work she's put in over the last year, and we hope that we can keep up the momentum for long time to come.
So, a County Planning Overnight was held to arrange activities in the County in the coming year. There was good turnout, there were Ventures from nearly all the Groups in Lee Valley. We had some ice-breakers and a BBQ on the Friday night, followed by a small casual campfire...
