Tag: outdoors

Exploring Brownsea Island – home of the Scouting movement

The nature, the wildlife, the history, the views, the swing and the pasties. There’s plenty to keep you occupied on Brownsea Island.

Brownsea Island has been on my wish list since I was about 10 and joined the Girl Guides. I read ‘Scouting for Boys’ – Robert Baden-Powell’s handbook to the Scouting movement he began – and learnt that it all started with a camp at Brownsea Island off the coast of Dorset. I was immediately hooked on the idea of visiting this island for myself (maybe it’s where I got my fascination for islands from?) but for some reason it took me well over forty years to do so.

After waiting so long and with my anticipation levels going through the roof, would it live up to my expectations?

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Exploring Studland Bay from Sandbanks to Old Harry Rocks

White sand beaches, blue sea, dramatic rock formations, an unusual ferry, ice-creams and folklore – is there any better way to spend a beautiful day in Dorset?

Easter Saturday was a gorgeous sunny and warm day; perfect for exploring the beautiful beaches of Dorset’s Studland Bay. Starting from the Sandbanks ferry we hopped across to the Isle of Purbeck and spent the whole day dipping in and out of the different beaches until we got to Old Harry Rocks at the the Southern tip of Studland Bay.

But before I tell you all about it, a bit geography. Have a look at the map below.

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Introduction to BELA

The first step towards learning to be an expedition leader.

I was up early this morning to drive to a primary school in St Helens for the first day of my BELA course. I got there early and sat sipping a coffee as the other delegates arrived. There are 21 of us in all. Most of the trainers we’ll be meeting over the next few months were there too to introduce themselves. 

BELA stands for Basic Expedition Leaders’ Award and will qualify me to lead bronze and silver expeditions for Duke of Edinburgh Award students. It’s only one step down from the walking group leaders’ qualification and so should stand me in good stead to achieve that whenever I get round to going for it.

It’s quite a time commitment as between now and November I have to attend three residential weekends. They start on the Friday evening and finish on the Sunday. I have to do another one in March for my assessment. In between finishing the third residential weekend and the assessment I have to fit in 30 hours of leading kids on walks. This concerns me a bit as it’ll be in the winter when daylight is short and the weather may be bad. Although this wouldn’t stop me from going out on a walk myself I won’t be able to take students out in the dark or in torrential storms and heavy snow drifts. I thought I’d be able to backdate these 30 hours to the spring and early summer when I spent, what seemed like, most of my weekends out with kids on practice and assessed bronze and silver expedition weekends. But, unfortunately not. I have to somehow fit it in between the end of the course’s practice weekends and the assessment weekend.

What I can backdate is my own walking experience. I have to fill in a log of walks I’ve done myself. Easy-peasy – I’ve got lots of them logged on here so I just have to flip back through my blog and copy the details over. 

Throughout the day we went over the expectations of the course and got a lot of the admin and form-filling done. Then we looked at equipment and did quite an interesting exercise in which we were given an equipment list, a total cost spent and lots of pictures of equipment from which we had to choose items to fit the cost we’d been given. It really showed how little you can spend to get the basics on a low budget and how much you can spend if you want to splash out on the best of everything and/or go for named brands. 

We looked at some actual equipment and were advised on how to tell if something is good or not and which items it’s worth spending a bit more on to get something decent (basically the things that can hurt you – boots and rucksack and also jacket because being soaking wet and cold is the equivalent of being ‘hurt’). 

All in all it was a good day and I’m feeling excited about my first residential the weekend after next. 

Duke of Edinburgh Weekends

Losing four weekends means I’m tired and behind with everything, but it was well worth it.

Last weekend was the last of my four Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition weekends. I’ve been wanting to get involved with this for years and it has been every bit as good as I was hoping it would be. Of course losing four weekends in close succession means I’m knackered and behind with everything else, but I think it was worth it. Even when it’s been chucking it down and nearly blowing me off the tops I’ve still enjoyed it. I’ve worked with a good team of people and the kids have all been great. We’ve dealt with issues and problems as they’ve arisen and I think we’ve dealt with them well. I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity to do this before starting my BELA (Basic Expedition Leader’s Award) course in September as I feel really confident about it now. I think I really could enjoy doing this kind of thing full-time – I just have to think of a way of actually making a decent living out of it!