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Select Scouts in the Mournes! |
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Written by Daire O'Riagain
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008
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 Long long ago, far far away, there once was a group of eager willing scouts and their leaders. They set off from Carrickmacross scout hall on a fine Saturday morning at 9 bells past midnight on the 26th day of the month of April. They had high hopes, full rucksacks and were ready to take on anything Mother Nature could throw at them. The big bad wolf and the three little pigs .........
The bus left the scout hall at 9.30 and dropped our group (Dylan Ogle, Laurence Mc Nally, Fergal McDermot, Gareth Keenan and leaders Daire O Riagain, Conan Connolly and Reggie Maggs) at the foot of Sleibh Donard car park at 11.30. We had tents, trangias and enough clothes, food and water to feed an army. After one or two short stops to tie laces and to take off one of our many fleeces, we finally got going along the Glen River path. About a third of the way up the path to the saddle we stopped to practise Naismith’s Rule and some micro navigation. Once the scouts had the hang of it, they were each given a leg of the hike to navigate on their own.
We go to the saddle between Slieve Donard and Slieve Commedagh a height of 550m at 2pm and stopped for lunch and a few posing photographs. The scouts took the next leg along the Brandy Path on their own, to Hare's Gap. There we had another break, finished off our lunch and made tracks for our campsite in Meal More Lodge were we arrived just before 6pm a little worse for ware but still happy.
The scouts did a fine job of pitching the tents and constructing a make shift bench from a few rocks and two hastily robbed scaffolding planks we spotted along the ditch. The leader set up the BBQ and cooked a fine meal of noodles, pasta, chicken wings, burgers and spare ribs. The rest of the evening was spent doing the wash up and chatting about the good auld days of scouting when the leaders were young. At 10.30pm we all headed to bed for a few hours sleep before our night hike to see the sun rise at the top of Luke's Mountain a height of 391m.
We woke at 3am for our night hike to Luke's Mountain. After a quick Mocha and a few jaffa cakes the group set off into the darkness for a 3km hike to the top. The scouts practiced leap frogging with compass bearing along the way. The sun rose just as we reached the top at about 6am. We sat down admiring the stunning view out over Bryansford and Newcastle bay, enjoying a well-deserved cuppa and a few more jaffa cakes. We headed off back for the campsite in the morning sunshine and slept until the heat from the sun woke us up around half nine. The leaders cooked a breakfast of cereal, sausages, bread rolls and pancakes and the scouts packed all the gear into Reggie's van. We decided we still had a bit of energy left to burn, so we headed for Tollymore mountain centre to do a bit of climbing on the indoor climbing wall. When everyone was good and tired we left for home smiling looking back on another enjoyable weekend.
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