July, 2019
Well what can I say but that was awesome!!!
It all started with a 14-hour bus trip to Tailem Bend in South Australia with about 40 Scouts!!
It was an eventful trip with one of the buses breaking down on the Hay plains and even a Kangaroo hit in the early hours of the morning!
After a breakfast at Pinarroo we headed into Tailem Bend, we arrived to find an environment close to what Mars would look like!!!
Red dust, Wind, Red dust, Wind and Scouts going everywhere!!!!!!
Once we found our camp site the big set up started!
Everyone got in and gave it really good effort in very trying conditions! Hot, Dusty and very windy!
We broke up into patrols who each had a job to do! We had Patrols setting tents, the kitchen and the dining areas.
This took quite a few hours to achieve but we did it!
One of the toughest things was hammering in tent pegs! About 50mm under that lovely red dirt is solid rock!!! Yep rock! The camp over the road even had a drill to try and pre drill the tent peg holes!!
Once set up we all got changed into our uniforms and went up to the main stage for our opening parade! Wow what a show!!! Live music, speakers and dancing kept us all entertained for the next couple of hours and to top it off an awesome fireworks display!
Over the next 10 days our patrols would all head off in different directs each day
Each morning and afternoon the Scouts would head off in their Patrols to various activity bases scattered over the site at Tailem bend.
Some of the activities included Whizz, Splat, Bang, Hitec, Cube, Trades and heaps more!
Once at these activities they then got to sample sub bases which included things like Electronics, Making solar lights, shooting, Smashing up a wrecked car, Land sailing, Abseiling, rock climbing, flour bomb fights, mud challenges…..and the list goes on!
No everyone was at one of these bases! Duty Patrol (responsible for all the meals) normally had some free time to cruse around the Allawah Mall and buy stuff! Boost juice, chips, Coffee and more boost juice!
During the 10 days each of our patrols got to experience 3 offsite adventures.
Metro Mania — The Scouts had a bus trip into Adelaide city, once there they had to find their way across the city to Glenelg where they caught the bus home. On the way though they got to experience navigating a large City, finding the nearest Macca’s or KFC or both!!!,
These where huge days as the Scouts had to be out of the campsite by about 7am and where gone for about 12–14 hours.
Wet and Wild — This was down near Murray Bridge on the famous Murray river.
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As the name states it was a water activity base! Everything from canoeing, dragon boating, sailing, rafting, waterslides and a whole heap more
The third activity was an overnight activity at Wood house which is an activity camp in the Adelaide hills!
The patrols had a full day to work their way around a full circuit which included Challenge hill!!! This had rope climbs, bridges, walls, tunnels and heaps more!
It also includes setting up and packing up around 200 tents!!!
The highlight (or lowlight for some) was the food! We all got given ration packs for our stay! (Including leaders!)
This included the world famous tins of Spam!!! Yep that’s right Spam! Never in my life have I seen tins of food used as currency! 1 x tin of tuna + a pack of biscuits = a tin of Spam!! OMG it was awesome!
A couple of awesome things at Wood house was the fact that the place had grass!! Yep soft green grass! See the below photo of me enjoying some bare feet time on the grass!!!(Note the Tailem tan!) Also there where Koalas all around us! They were awesome except when they were squealing in the middle of the night outside your tent!!!!
I’m fairly certain that every Scout that went to Jamboree had an unbelievable experience!
They got to do awesome during the days and then of an evening there where concerts, magicians and talent shows on the main stage!
One of the concerts that really had the Scouts excited was Justice Crew! Us leaders sat at out camp and while they were all up at the stage dancing and screaming.
The environment made it a very tough but very rewarding camp!
It will go down as my hardest ever camp but wow what a great time we all had!
After the closing parade we had to board our coach for our trip home (11pm!!!!) The trip home was very different to the one across! The driver turned up the heat and everyone was soon asleep!
We did get to see some very entertaining sleeping positions!
To any Cub who is linking up shortly or any Scout that still meets the age limit the next Jamboree is going to be in Victoria!! Start hassling Mum and Dad now and great read for an experience of a life time!!!
