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29th August 2014 Hiking - Walking: Box Hill-Surrey Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: SAYERS CROFT – AUGUST 2014 Gang – Maddi, Georgia, Matthew, Maggie, Stephen, Rob and Hannah Friday 29 August • Leave Felixstowe about 10.30 • Lunch at the Clacket Lane services as decided it would be easier and quicker than waiting until we got to The Stepping Stones!! • Arrive at The Stepping Stone walk at Box Hill in Surrey about 2 • Walk across the Stepping Stones and up the steep hill to the Box Hill monument with its amazing views across Surrey to the coast around Brighton • Decide to walk the long way down and back along the river Mole and go over the stepping stones again • We drive to Rob’s at Sayers Croft in Ewhurst, Surrey • We visit Rob’s lovely little cottage (scout hut says Stephen) • We have a drink and some of the huge amount of cake and flapjack we took with us. Then we carried all our stuff to our Dormitory (Downhurst?) It is huge! Has a kitchenette, lots of tables – we sat round the first group of four for all our meals (Maggie has brought all the plates, bowls and cutlery from the camper van) and for playing games. The mural about Sayers Croft that Rob helped to make runs all along one wall. There are 2 rooms full of bunk beds to choose from and a big block of loos, sinks and showers. Then there are three teacher’s rooms with en-suite bathrooms!! Maddi and Georgia choose bunk beds next to each other, Matthew has a single teacher’s room, Maggie and Stephen a double teachers room and Rob and Hannah the other one for the first night but go home for the second night as they didn’t sleep very well! We all take our own bedding/sleeping bags but Matthew seems to forget and sleeps in the made up bed lol • Rob kicks the activities off with a big one first! We all go Caving We all get kitted out with crash hats, knee pads and plimsolls then into the caves to slither, twist and turn round the whole course including the ball cave. Afterwards we went outside to see all the twists and turns we had been round. Brilliant! • Rob and Hannah had bought lots of different flavour pizzas and cook two at a time and they quickly disappear off the plate while we watch Tipping Point • We briefly go back to the Dorm then out in the dark to do the Reflector walk. We all have a small torch and go in pairs Maddi and Georgia, Matthew and Hannah, Stephen and Maggie. Rob goes off by himself to the end. We have to shine the torch at the trees and magically tiny reflectors light up and guide you on a long walk through the forest It is a bit scary and you have to watch you don’t trip over the tree roots. Maddi and Georgia decide to shine one torch on the ground and one at the trees – clever When we finally reach the tree with a star on it Rob appears from the darkness to say Hello! Then everyone hides to wait for Maggie and Stephen and when they spot Maddi she makes up a story of how everyone else has gone and left her (they don’t believe that!!). Then everyone jumped out and Rob sat us down on the circle of tree stumps and gave us all a sugar lump. In couples and in the pitch dark we had to crunch the sugar lump with our mouths open (!) and it was magic – there was a lightning storm in your partners mouth! It didn’t work for everyone but when it did it was amazing. Then he lit a tea light on the middle tree stump and we had to cover one eye and stare at the light. Afterwards when you covered each eye alternately one side was darker than the other. • Back to the dorm for a drink, cake and a several rounds of the card game werewolf and one of Rob’s board games called Tsuro which was very quick and involved making a route across a board with cards. • Bed Saturday 30 August • After breakfast we headed out for the Team Challenge which involved us all working together to complete an obstacle course without touching the ground at all. Some of the things we had to do were: All standing on a circle of tree stumps and manoeuvring ropes and a hook to pick up the key to the padlocked gate to enter the course. Using boards to get through the gate! Walking across ropes, planks, tree stumps All walking on boards with cord handles as a team of 6 – “up with the left foot down with the right” says leader Maggie trying to keep us all walking together! Working out how to stand on a log and one of your team pulling a rope to swing you to the next bit Man handling huge planks onto tyres Crawling though a cube of cords strung across – not supposed to touch the cords but we were rubbish at that! All standing on a tree stump circle and turning metal poles to make a key to the padlocked exit appear in a separate box! Brilliant fun and a great laugh • After a drink and cake break, Rob gets the stuff for the High Ropes where everyone has at least two goes round the ropes course (not Maggie as she has done it once and doesn’t want to do it again!). Georgia does the most amazing splits on the rope loops! Matt falls off and swings on the harness quite a few times! Maddi keeps her head down and perseveres with great determination!! • Then straight over to the climbing wall! Lots of climbing up on the different coloured blobs which form the wall. They all had a go at the hardest! Rob then got the abseiling ready and they all had a go at that! Maddi was very quiet and worried about taking that first step over backwards but she did it …. Twice • Total exhaustion leads to big lunch • Absolutely hilarious afternoon raft building Maggie and Stephen are supposedly sitting this one out but Stephen can’t resist helping them all to tie their big canisters to their pallets in various ways to make their rafts as buoyant as possible. They all had very different ideas and Georgia’s in particular was very strange and we never thought it would work! Hers sat so high in the water it looked impossible! Stephen and Rob helped to launch then they were off and they all managed it perfectly. The pond has an island in the middle and amazingly they all made it round – wobbling all the way, some with oars and some with poles to punt with. You couldn’t believe that they were still afloat! Maddi got stuck at the back of the island for a while but the pond is a natural pond with weed etc. so it took a bit of determination to get out but she did it eventually. Then they started to stand up!!!!! They did it too! The activity involves them standing up on the raft to hit a ball hanging overhead and they all managed that. Then they started jumping and really trying to fall in – they managed it eventually and had a great time pushing each other off and jumping in the very green water! Matthew managed to bum hitch across the rope to the island which rob had never seen done before! What a brilliant afternoon’s fun but it wasn’t over….. • Because they were all wet anyway Rob took us (M and S too) on the river walk. We had to walk through the woods to the stream then got in and walked up the middle! We had to scramble over fallen trees, round obstacles and go through really deep bits! We got out a long way up and walked back across the fields • Kids in the shower and Rob goes home for a well earned break! Hannah has had to work this afternoon • We have a Chinese takeaway for tea – Rob and Matt go into Cranleigh to get it and we all agreed it was better than any in Felixstowe! • Then we were off again to make a camp fire in the field where the round house is. Matt was on fire making duty and fed it with a whole box of firelighters and a whole pack of wood!! It was brilliant. We looked at the stars, saw the planes going over to and from Gatwick, saw a satellite slowly going overhead and Maddi and Hannah saw a shooting star We had marshmallows to toast on long twigs Rob had prepared earlier and he had also brought small chocolate digestives to put either side of the marshmallows to make s’mores Hannah remembered the words to one of the campfire songs she sang when she worked at Swannage – The day I went to sea and it was about sailors and involved counting – so we had to make up the words to rhyme with numbers so when I was one I broke my thumb etc.. it had lots of actions and was hilarious A brilliant and exhausting day – off to bed!! Sunday 31 August • Breakfast and Rob shows us his photos of Canada and Hannah is still asleep • They go off to do Archery while Maggie tidies up the Dorm but there are people and stuff in the Dorm where the Archery is so they can’t do it. Rob suggests orienteering • We go for a walk round the grounds and visit the roundhouse. Rob introduces us to a game where masking tape is stuck to your nose and you have to press noses with everyone and see who wins the joust. The person who has all 7 pieces on their nose is the winner The walk carries on around the pond and zip line Back to Dorm for break. • Visit to the Maze to complete the challenge to get to the exit gate • Then have a go at the Blindfold trail which simulates what it would be like to be blind. Have to be in partners so Maddi and Matthew went together, Stephen and Georgia. One person has to explain the obstacles while the other one, wearing a soft mast and blacked out goggles has to hold a rope and scramble over various tree roots and stumps, under tunnels, through tyres etc.. They then swap over and Rob partnered Georgia while Stephen took photos. • Off to the low ropes, very like the high ropes but lower! Kids went with rob while Maggie and Stephen and Hannah have a chat sitting in the sun at one of the picnic tables near the main buildings • Back to the dorm for lunch and packing then some selfies (hashtag selfie!) with all the stuff back in the van we return to Rob’s house to collect some wood he had chopped up for Maggie and Stephen’s fire. We take a huge box full and move the remainder to a better place on the other side of the door for them. Then at 3 o’clock we have to leave We have the best journey back we have ever had and are dropping Matthew and Georgia off at home after 2 hours 20 minutes. Photo Gallery here |
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