3rd to 5th April 2013.

COLD and WINDY.  I stayed in J-W's pocket as much as possible.  Max of about 6 degrees and 0 degrees at night.  Now last time we did this the Scouts were swimming in the rivers, this year one of the Scouts found it hurt when he rinsed his hands off in a river.

This year we only had about 40 scouts and leaders for the trip.

We got trains down to Ashurst as normal, we all went the same way from the station and headed for the normal lunch stop in the woods.  J-W ended up taking the three Shalford  Scouts through the boggy bit he likes going in on the first day.  Only problem is he took the top route and found that in the last two years the gravel covered bridge had disappeared. Luckly the Scouts could jump across.  One of them fell over, but not in the bog.

The Scouts actually got a fire going in the evening and played wide games to keep warm.

Did not think much of the small amount of snow we had over the day.

Next morning it was no warmer, but J-W said the showers were quiet hot.  We left site with 3 scouts, but ended up with the Shalford 3 and the 2 Young Leaders with them for about the last 9/10ths of the distance.  It was windy and cold.  There was more light snow which did not settle. Even with the scouts singing songs we still saw one herd of deer, and found the joined bones of what looked like the back leg of a deer.  J-W got really muddy at the underpass.  The scouts again made a fire to keep warm.

On the last day J-W had all 6 of the scouts from the day before but no Young Leaders.  We did end up picking up a spare scout from another group mid morning, so we ended the day with 7 scouts!  Again the scouts let J-W set the base route, so we ended up getting wet in the last couple of km's.

I spent most of the time in J-W's pockets with the zip done up as it was so cold.

2 nights away making 173 in total.