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WILD WEST Whitsun camp - in Devon & Somerset... May 2004 Over the May half-term we went West, to Devon and Somerset, for a four day adventure on land, sea and underground. Caddihoe We camped at Caddihoe Scout Centre near Exeter. Rather quaint, it proved an excellent base and wonderful for wide games. Comedy generator for the cottage too. Football goals Pioneering should be useful, so we built two football goals (complete with nets) using pioneering poles and rope. Then had a massive game of football using them. Colin kindly showed everybody how to do various lashing, so that they didn't fall down when we hit the cross-bar. Splat An utterly terrible game which nobody likes. President An awesome game that everybody thought was great. Fire Food Neal led the building of a big campfire to cook on then sit round whilst eating toasted sandwiches, chocolate bananas and jacket potatoes. Coasteering We got ourselves to Start Point and the South Devon coastline. It was hot and sunny, Med-style and we were set for our first taste of coasteering. This essentially involves getting along the coastline by climbing, jumping and swimming. Despite the Devon mini-heat-wave, the sea was absolutely freezing and the first swim was spent trying to catch our breath. We soon warmed up and spent the next hour or so jumping of rocks that were increasingly higher above the swell. Finishing with a twenty footer, it was time to head back up and get the salt water out of our hair. Body boarding A wicked two hours on the beach at Bantham were spent catching big waves (well, biggish) and riding them into the shore. Awesome stuff, and we looked really cool for an afternoon. Mike G seemed to be getting the best waves, though everybody did well. We gotta get back to be gnarly dudes on the beach soon. Caving We spent a day in the Mendips going underground for a full day's caving. Split into four groups, everybody spent the morning in Goatchurch Cavern - a complex caving system not far from Cheddar. It's got lots of big caverns linked by climbs, crawls and wriggly bits. "Bloody tight" and "Jacob's Ladder" were particularly interesting squeezes, "The Smartie Tube" proved popular, whilst "The Crack of Doom" had the most amusing name. We emerged for lunch and following that it was time for another trip. Younger scouts completed another cave near Goatchurch, whilst older scouts headed off to Priddy for a trip to the famous Swildon's Hole. Swildon's is a wet cave with streams and waterfalls flowing through it - and it's impossible to get through without getting drenched. We climbed, abseiled some waterfalls, crawled through "The U-bend" and had a great time squeezing and sloshing through the chambers. All in all, a wonderful day beneath the earth. Assault Course Huish Woods, where we stayed our final night, has a wicked assault course on-site. Naturally, we rinsed it. Mud Bum Slide A new game - is exactly what it says on the tin. It's on mud. It's on your bum. It involves sliding. It's sliding down mud on your bum. Wahoo! Landyachting We returned to Brean Sands, to hoon it along the beach in landyachts. The morning wind was good and we got good power to whisk us along. Unfortunately it died down after lunch, so we headed toward Wells for... Abseiling We stopped off to a secret quarry just outside Wells for a 100ft abseil down a sheer rock wall. We set up too, one including a nice little overhang, which was fun. Some scouts did their first abseil, whilst others lost count. We had a great time in the West, the weather was again kind to us, and we've set a high standard for our Summer Camp in North Wales to follow. We're just looking forward to more action overland, underground, and on the seas.