CARRICK 'HIKE'

Carrick Castle ‘Hike’ 2nd-4th January 1966 (from the Troop Log of Jan 63-Feb 66)

 

Participants

SM Bob Miler

ASMs Albert Runcie, Alistair Cram and Robin Crawford

 

 2nd January 1966

The first of the 70th to camp this year were 4 of the Scouters (Messers Miller, Cram, Runcie and Crawford) who had planned to hike to Carrick. On the 2nd, however, the weather was so bad, that to our eternal disgrace –and evident enjoyment–we ‘hiked’ by the SM’s car.

 

By the time we had arrived at Carrick, the weather had done a brillo and the sun was making great efforts to appear. It was warm and we all went to pit in full Summer camp sleeping uniform – but, and a very big but! – about 02:00 hours on the third, one of the Scouters sallied forth to answer nature and crunched through inches of frost. The cold had arrived and stayed until the end of camp.

 

3rd January 1966

With the cold, came the absolute ?????? weather. Blue sky, no cloud, sun – and frost! An expedition to the Viking village was organized and we set along on the road (by car of course!) and then headed off into the hills for the great climbings. We soon realized how unfit we were –great efforts were required!

 

Finally, the lochan beside the Viking village was attained -  it was frozen over to a thickness of 2 to 3 inches of ice. The next few minutes was spent face-feeding,  and then curling took precedence for the next half hour. Then a small rock island was spotted in the middle of the lochan and Oz and  Robin made a cautious expedition out to it (see photograph). They then skated off but not before breaking the ice round the rock -  thus making the journey for the remaining pioneers more difficult.

 

We (Bob Miller and Alistair Cram) reached the island without much difficulty but had much difficulty in establishing the position of equilibrium (see photograph). The tricky part was getting off as the ice around was now very cracked and precarious. The method finally hit upon (See photograph) was to dive forward over the ??? ice and then ‘swim’ for safety. As someone had brought a tin of sardines, we were then able to have the delicacy of sardines on ice.

 

Back at the campsite, we had a game of the floodlight football – the moon was extra bright.

 

4th January 1966

After a very cold night, we stayed in our pits this morning and cooked our breakfast at the door of the tent on a Primus. The only snag to this was that the ice on the inside of the tent started to melt and we were rained upon!

 

The morning was spent playing football and throwing stones in the loch. Afternoon came and we had to depart. So ended the brillo-est coldest camp for a long time!

​

  Author: Alistair B Cram (ASM)