My summer was very frenetic and over all too quickly. It seemed as though I lurched from one adventure straight into another. While all my adventures will be chronicled in good time, I feel I should start at the beginning. The great adventure was yet to come but the first adventure is also worth telling.
As in past years, I volunteered to be a counsellor at the Ukrainian scout camp. This year it was Sydney's turn again and the camp was held at Kirrikee, a property outside Penrose, NSW held by an Anglican school in Sydney. Penrose is about halfway between Canberra and Sydney making travel there fairly easy. I was kindly taken by the Liszczynsksys, a local scouting family.
It was good to see everyone on the first day again, many people whom I hadn't seen for 2 years. Certainly many of the scouts had grown up since that time but I remembered most of them. There were some new faces too from the younger ranks. As people arrived we quickly set up the camp and the scouts were separated into groups and each group had an army tent. There were 4 male tents and 1 long tent for the females. I should also point out that this year there were, at one point, 26 scouts which is a lot for any Australian camp.
The first day started inauspiciously enough with a great downpour, such that it was difficult to hear the opening ceremony inside the metal structure. The raindrops made a colossal cacophony on the metal roof. The camp staff and leadership were introduced as was the theme of the camp. This year it was honouring past scout camps and it turns out that in the 1960s-1980s, the Sydney organization had a property called Kholodnyy Yar, the "Cool Dale" just outside Sydney. It had to sell it once the city encroached on the property but it was an important place for many years. The theme of the camp would, therefore, be scouting as it once was.
Not much was done the first day and once the rain lifted, the whole area was blanketed in a thick fog. The next day was even worse. It rained constantly and there was a biting wind. It was difficult to believe that this was an Australian summer. There was a scout from Canada visiting her sister who was at camp for a few days and I was worried that this would give her a false impression of what an Australian summer looks like.
However, the second day did see some productive work. The scouts put up a wooden archway leading into the camp and learned how to filer water using their neckerchiefs. To waterproof their tents, the scouts also dug ditches around them to catch any water. One part of on particular ditch was at least 1 meter deep. The scouts also got some time to come up with ideas for some music to be played at a later camp fire.
The third finally saw the weather clearing and warming up, allowing for some funner activities. The highlight was, without question, a ropes course where you climb and otherwise traverse obstacles while suspended several meters in the air. Following a safety talk, one-by-one the scouts proceeded to try their luck at the course. Finally, I dared to go and made a pretty good go of it until the final obstacle, which was a jump out to a set of hanging crossbars. I made the mistake of pushing out with only one leg rather than both at the same time which meant I didn't quite make the distance. It was a little embarrassing but I was happy to have completed the course.
This was all a lead up to the next days' task which was a canoe hike, but that story comes in Part 2.
