15th to 17th October.

We went by mini-bus to Foxlease in the New Forest, this is a Big Guide Centre.  We also took 10 Cubs along and put them in the Stable! I never did find any horses.

We got them up and out of the stable by 9am on the Saturday, as we were taking them across to Brownsea Island on the ten am ferry.  Whilst waiting for the ferry the cubs found the statue of Lord B-P which is on the Quay.  One Cub was heard to say, "I can get my finger's up  his nose."  So there followed the talk about who he was and why the statue was there.

The weather was great and the Cubs were ok as well. We had a guided tour of the island from a National Trust lady, and then in the afternoon she had the Cubs and the Leaders reinacting the activities from the Brownsea Camp.  Over lunch the Cubs had been mugged by a Peacock.  The Guides who were also there, did not seem to like it when it tried getting food from them.  This is the time of year to see Squirrels on the island.  One Cub made it up to seventeen, and one of the others was very proud of his six sightings.  We were getting a bit cold from the wind, so took the 4:30pm ferry back round the island.

On the way back to Foxlease we stopped off for Fish and Chips.  We had phoned in the order from the bus.

On the second day had to get the cubs up for breakfast.  It took the Cubs quite a time to clean out the stable and load the bus.  We got away by 10am.  We were only going a couple of miles down the road to Beulea and the National Motor Museum.  Not too sure of having a monorail running through the roof of the museum building.  The Cubs spent ages watching the videos about the land speed cars, and they seemed to like the Top-Gear and James Bond displays.

We left around 3pm and were going to be on time (i.e. home for 5pm) untill we came across a three car accident on the Motorway.   Our bus driver is a member of the Ambulance Service, so had to stop and give First Aid as there were no Ambulance staff or other Emergancy staff there.  So we ended up with two leaders in Hi-Vis in lane three and one leader and the mini-bus full of Cubs on the hard shoulder inside an On-slip road about 150 metres after the accident site.  This was ok for the first ten minutes, but at the end of half an hour the Cubs had got bored with playing spot the emergancy vechile.  Quite why any large white van with orange lights on top was said to be an Ambulance, I do not know.

Two nights away.  Up to 119 now.