A couple of weeks ago 10 Scouts travelled to Meggernie to take part in a Survival Skills weekend, with another 34 Scouts from around Scotland. We arrived late on Friday night and thought we'd be going straight to bed...but Rab and Judith had other ideas...there was lots to learn and loads of activities to do before bed. The Scouts did feather sticks, survival kits, fire steels, tinder cloths, axe work, the fire triangle and survival shelters. It was 1am before everyone got to bed.
It was back to work the next morning, straight after breakfast the Scouts had to search the site for kit to build bivouacs, which they'd be sleeping in that night! They found a tarpaulin and some rope so everyone made pretty good bivouacs.
Then it was back to learning more survival skills. The Scouts learnt how to light fires without matches, water filtration and purification, first aid including bleeding, CPR and defibrilation, safe use of axes, saws and knives, different types of fires (jenga, altar, star and long fires), all about trees - which make the best fires for cooking, heating, light and emergency situation communications...they're now fully prepared for any survival situation.
After a very full day the Scouts lit our own fires and made dinner (stew, kebabs and pizzas on the open fires)and then got all their kit together to sleep in our bivouacs. It was quite cold and rained during the night but they all stayed in our bivouacs and even got some sleep.
The next day the Scouts were all quite tired but still managed to learn more skills, made their own fire steels and cooked spatchcock chicken, fish and chocolate bananas over the open fires.
After one of the most exhausting weekends ever, we all got out Survival badges and even a special survival kit to take home.
Thanks to Rab and Judith and all the other expert leaders for a great weekend.
Here are a few photos of the various activities we got up to.
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