The Long Awaited Walk!

19/06/14

This week we took the girls up the local hill, as we had planned to do when we couldn't use the hall because of voting. When we told them last time that it had been cancelled, many of them were upset and several asked us when we were going to do it instead so we slotted it in to this week. 

We had a minor crisis just before as two of our leaders couldn't come due to family circumstances and that put us below the required ratio. Brown Owl put out a quick email to the parents asking if anyone would mind staying and a few said they would join us so we were covered once again! We knew that a few of the girls have dogs and their parents were planning on using the opportunity to walk the dog while we were up there so we knew it wouldn't be too much of a problem, it was just a case of letting them know. We ended up having 4/5 join us in the end!

We met the girls by the visitor centre at the top of the hill and checked everyone off on the register. When everyone had arrived, we had a brief discussion as to which way we were going to go; there were three choices from where we were at that point! There was quite a lot of shouting and pointing until we finally settled on heading into the woods. We set off with the Leaders and parents interspersed with the girls and the express instruction that everyone must stay within sight and not go through any gates without the rest of the group. At each junction in the path we pretty much left it up to the girls at the front as to which way we were going to go, except towards the beginning where the path they chose was back towards the visitor centre already! Quite a few of the girls picked up sticks to use as walking sticks and there were a few that were being carried by two or three girls that were pretty large. We're still not quite sure why they were carrying them - no one could get a straight answer out of the girls - but we let them carry on unless it was being waved around too much and in danger of hitting other girls/leaders.

We came a cross a couple of members of the public who looked at us as if we were slightly mad to be taking so many girls for a walk and then deliberately chose the path we didn't because we were making quite a bit of noise too! Our walk took us out into the open after a while and we were walking along the side of the hill. We had some wonderful views down into the town but the girls were mostly interested pulling bits of sticky weed from the hedgerows and making crowns from it! We took a break at the top of the hill and sat to look at the view for a few minutes to give the girls a chance to have a drink and sit down. We then walked back past the visitor centre into the Iron Age Hill Fort to do our circle and hand out letters as it is a nice large field (the fort is marked out by marks in the ground). 

We had absolute chaos as we walked round to the field though as there were a couple of cows grazing in there. Quite a lot of the girls panicked and thought that the cows were going to come and attack them. We pointed out that they were just grazing and were only looking over because the girls were making lot of noise but a couple of them weren't convinced and thought that they were plotting against us and were going to trap us in (one cow was walking across the only way out on its way to more grass)! We got them into a circle finally and handed out a few letters for the next few weeks and then were about to start Brownie Bells when a cow wandered too close for comfort for most of the girls and our circle collectively ran away from it! It then paused in its tracks because they were all running and screaming which made the worse as they thought it was going to come towards them. Eventually it moved on and semi-normality was returned to the circle so we could actually end the meeting. We then headed back to the visitor centre to meet the parents; quite a few of the girls ran to the gate and then were yelling at us to hurry up so they could get out of the field. Handing the girls back to their parents took a surprisingly short amount of time and finally we could leave ourselves. 

It was quite a pleasant walk, not too hot that everyone was tired and grumpy but warm enough to not have to wear a coat or jacket. I was particularly entertained by the number of girls who were scared by the cows and it made me wonder about how this generation copes with the outdoors. None of them seemed to know very much about the outdoors, whereas I, although I was keeping one eye on the cows, was perfectly comfortable walking through the field and being around them. I don't know whether its a lack of education they're getting or whether it's something to do with the fact that they spend less time outdoors - many of our girls have mobile phones, iPods, iPads and tablets whereas I didn't have any of those until I had started at secondary school and I spent more time outdoors around animals. Either way, I think we have to educate the girls in the ways of the outdoors and get them outside more so that they are not so scared of everything.

By the time you read this, I will have finished my last exam so I have the whole summer ahead of me to do Guiding related things! I am planning on working towards parts of Look Wider as I now have 3 months to kill before hopefully moving to university so I will keep you updated on my progress as I go too!