Bolton's Bench Lyndhurst

Saturday morning saw the Coy main massive of cadets descend onto Bolton's Bench just outside Lyndhurst to start the day. All route cards and admin had been completed the week before at the preparation day, so it was a case of kit checking, and sorting into groups.

The Bronze Qualifier's were taken aside and their assessment process started by the head of DofE within the County, Major Jamie Richter, and Z Coy CSM Amanda Speight who was also making sure the group followed the rules to be awarded their Bronze Exped. Also helping was the newest Coy recruit "Rio" who was guiding SSI Dave Martin for the day, as well as other Coy staff, Major Hope, Capt Ali Longworth, and Mrs Fiona Hope.

After the safety brief from 2/Lt James Lillicrap and with Haribo and other rations packed it was a case of the qualifiers heading out, closely followed by teams "WowPow", "Chomp Chomp", and "Clumsy Numpties"

Without a drop of rain to be seen anywhere all, the assisting adults were allocated to the various check-points to see the cadets through with water replenishment where necessary. Denny Wood saw all the cadets through where lunch was taken, with most of the uphill and harder section of the route taken care of. It was then onto several more check points until finally arriving at the camp site for the night at Hollands Wood just outside Brockenhurst.

No time was wasted after a hard day of walking to get the tents set up and evening meal on the go with a huge range of culinary delights from pasta to steak and sweet potatoes!

Hollands Wood Campsite For Return Leg...

With beautiful clear skies during the day, usually means a rather parky 2.5 degrees C overnight! However the cadets weren't going to let that dull their enthusiasm with breakfast quickly on the go, and then the 3 star and Bronze Qualifiers heading out first to get the mileage in. the early morning sun was used to try and dry the tents out a bit, but it was then down to the rest of the practice groups to break camp and get underway.....

The day again was a hot one, but with the 2IC making sure he claimed a space back at Bolton's Bench car park, it was a case of waiting for the cadets to roll back in......

33 Out....33 Back In!

It was 33 cadets out and a perfect score of all 33 completing the course! The 3* cadets rolled in first giving them plenty of opportunity to get their tents laid out flat to dry out and get brushed down, as well as all the other lent kit to be checked off and handed back in to be returned to HQ at Newburgh House.

The Qualifiers were then to arrive, but their day was not over as again Major Jamie Richter and CSM Amanda Speight tested the final stages for qualification purposes. Then the practice teams came in, very hot and tired but in good spirits in having completed the whole event!

One of the teams got slightly confused with getting back and contact front drills, and alas some cooking equipment was lost along the way....

Special Thanks

Special thanks needs to go to Major Ant Shallow, OC of A Coy for providing the additional bergens required at short notice, and also Lt Kerry Barker of Dorset ACF for getting the much hard to source flag through in record time!