Peter Pan to the rescue!

I always face Scout camps with excitement and a little trepidation. Last time I put my hand up, I ended up cooking three meals a day for 30 kids on a 10-day drive to Canberra, so you might understand!

This time we were only going for 24 hours, so how bad could it be? Wraps for lunch, burgers for dinner and cake in between sounded like a walk in the park, and it was. And it was an Astronomy camp, so watching the planets sounded like a relaxing way to spend a Saturday night.

Of course, there were plenty of activities planned before dark descended and I always seem to come away with a new bruise or two. This camp was no exception: scrapped knees and elbows from the giant climbing wall, bruises up one arm where my archery bow connected with flesh, and sore hands from showing off my gate vault.

All predicable, but I hadn’t bargained on the GIANT SWING! Picture a telegraph pole standing in the middle of a rainforest clearing. Then imagine cinching down harness straps and clipping in a helmet then locking onto one end of a rope that’s fed through a pulley. ON the other end are 15 kids running as fast as they can away from you, to hoist you to the top of the pole.

The kids count you down “Three, two, one” and, with blind faith, you let go of your safety blanket and drop several metres. The rope tightens and within seconds you are flying through the trees like Superman or Peter Pan! I DID IT, without dirtying my shorts! I wonder what they will throw at me NEXT time?