Altitude June 2012 | Page 2

Altitude 2497 COSFORD SQUADRON Windermere Camp In half term week, a few cadets went away to camp. For some, it was their first camp. Here is a write up from Cadet Mathias who gives an account of the fun things they got up to. ‘Between the 2nd and 9th of June, eight cadets from our squadron went to NACATC Windermere. They were Cdt Cornes, Cdt P Boyle, Cdt Hawthorn, Cdt Dowd, Cdt Gillet, Cdt S Boyle, Cdt Morjaria and me!! It was an early start to leave for Windermere and a 3 hour journey ahead too. When we arrived we all settled in and started to get to know everyone, thankfully we had a resting day before the busy week ahead of us! We had our first brief and we got to know our way around and prepared for the next day, which was hill walking and navigating. On Sunday it was the first of our early starts, and we were up and ready to go by nine. There were three different flights and we all took different routes to get to a point within the nearby national park. It was such a beautiful place to walk around and once we got to the top we stopped in a very snug 10 man emergency shelter, with twelve people! We did the same on Monday and instead of a staff member helping us we had to navigate back to centre on our own (the quicker the better as the hot water ran out quickly!!) On Wednesday we had a very busy day!! We did canoeing and kayaking in the morning then got changed and had our lunch. Straight after that we went to gill scrambling, which was walking and climbing up a stream that ran all the way down a very tall mountain. I think everyone still has the bruises from that day! Thursday was another very busy day it included mountain biking and orienteering at another beautiful national park. The mountain biking was very muddy and cold but even for the beginners it was very enjoyable (more so going down than up!). For the orienteering task there was a set course and we were given half an hour to complete it, we were in groups of two and we weren't allowed to get help from other teams. After about an hour and ten minutes two pairs finally made it back after getting just a tad lost!! The next day was outdoor cooking, survival work and rock climbing, we then split into two flights (Typhoon and Fairies). We switched after lunch time and both were amazing activities, but the abseiling part was fairly scary to do! Our cooking work involved using Trangia stoves to make a ‘cuppa’. Page 2 Please feel free to give feedback to [email protected]