CCF February Adventure Training Camp
Over half-term, a party of fifty cadets, NCOs and officers made for the beauty of the Mendip Hills in Somerset and for Charterhouse, a remote rural hamlet a few miles from Cheddar Gorge. Saturday saw cadets abseiling at Split Rock, lowering themselves from nauseating heights in gusty conditions down a sheer cliff to the ‘encouragement’ of their friends at the top and bottom. Meanwhile, over in the equally-stunning Quantock Hills, an arduous mountain biking package tested stamina and the claims of mums’ laundry powders in equal measure as cadets powered up and flew down the twisting woodland trails. The evening back at camp was spent revising navigation skills and planning routes for Monday’s NavEx.
A sunny Sunday brought a combined package of dry caving and rock climbing at Burrington Combe. Above ground, the dauntless cadets scaled six climbs on a tricky rock face, belaying one another under staff supervision. Far below them small groups vanished into the myriad natural caves of the Mendips, taking their first steps in caving and learning the basics of subterranean movement and navigation. The beauty of the rock formations combined with the exhilaration of the adventure in what was a claustrophobic’s nightmare, culminating in the Drainpipe: a thirty-metre tunnel just big enough for a grown man (and almost not big enough for the OCs Army and RAF after large breakfasts) to wriggle along head-first. Such exertions amply warranted a relaxing night of bowling and laser tag, Flt Lt Hillier again peerless in the former discipline.
Monday was the highlight of our exercise. The juniors set off for a five-hour navigation exercise from camp to caves across the tops, high spirits augmented by watery sunshine and undimmed by an understandable confusion between north and south. All made it safely eventually, some by means of flagrant trespass on local estates, to Swildon’s Hole, where an afternoon of wet caving awaited, entering the caves in the torrent of an underground river and exploring the waterfalls and thigh-deep streams of the upper series. Meanwhile the senior cadets spent a long and extraordinary day in the famous system. Few young cavers get the opportunity to dive the first sump as our hardy cadets did: they abseiled down (and in) several underground cascades to where the water level meets the roof. A six-foot, pitch black, fully submerged dive, head banging on the roof in vain search for oxygen, was an unforgettable and terrifying experience, but one which the senior cadets handled with a courage and determination that quite bowled over their instructors. For most this was the climax of a very successful, tiring and enjoyable exercise in which the cadets acquitted themselves admirably. It was a unique and almost otherworldly experience in the chasms beneath the earth and a reminder of the beauty and adventure England has to offer so close to home.
You can watch the video of our exercise HERE.
Capt Mathew Owen
OC Army Section
