Beavers Camp

In July, Wateringbury Beavers had their first proper camp. We stayed at Blacklands HQ in East Malling which has a huge field, campfire circle and nature area. The Beavers worked together brilliantly to put their lightweight tents up, often choosing to be an ‘expert’ in one aspect of pitching: pushing poles through, sorting out the inner or pegging out guylines.

The weather was mostly dry, although we had a lot of rain overnight and a huge thunderstorm during our second day. However, we were all well prepared, stayed dry and still managed lots of activities, including a nature hunt, identifying many different minibeasts including grasshoppers, lacewings, soldier beetles and cinnabar moth caterpillars, and craft activities including pebble painting, Mexican weaving and making art using only natural items.

The main theme of our camp was the Camp Crafts badge so as well as learning how to put tents up, we also lit fires using flint and steel, cooked chocolate bananas and smores on the campfire and tied reef knots, which lots of us found a bit tricky! Trying different team challenges was a lot of fun.