1st Hermanus Sea Scouts

Articles 2010

Hint: Click on most pictures for better quality.

Table Mountain Hike

27, 28 November 2010

We started hiking at about 10:30. Our route took us from our start at Kloof neck sircle, along the pipe track and up Corridor ravine. Then we went on our way to the scout hut, visiting the table mountain Cracks along the way.

It started raining 10minutes after we arrived at the hut, the scouts made their own supper and went to bed early. The next morning it was misty, we planed to hike to Maclear's beacon and down Platteklip gorge, however we decided (due to some scouts taking strain the previous day and the unpredictable weather) to do a tour of the dams and to go down Kasteel's poort instead.

On our tour of the dams we went right to the other end of the mountain and enjoyed views of the Southern suburbs from the top of Nursery ravine (top of Kirstenbosch botanical gardens). The scouts found the sea scout base at Sandvlei in Muzenberg in the view.

The walk down Kasteel's poort went well and last bit of walk on the pipe track was pleasant. We finnished our hike at 13:00

Here is a google earth graph of the incline. Day 1 Day2

Written by Felix

1st Aid scoutcraft badgecourse weekend

20, 21, 22 August 2010

From left to Right - Matthew, Jason, Mitch, John. Photos taken by Deejay.

This was a superjampacked weekend. On Friday scouts met at the usual time for scouts but left shortly after loading the bakkies with our kit and cooking equipment. We left at 18:35 and had a 10min holdup at Deejay's house, to pick up some clothes and a sleeping bag.

At 20:00 we arrived at iThemba Labs. This is a place where research is done at an atomic level. Ben explained that they do something very similar to the astronomers at SALT in Sutherland. The astronomers study stars. At iTemba Labs they also look at "stars" but ones billions and billions of times smaller called atoms. Ben explained to us about hydrogen electrons and neutrons and protons and how they are excelled like ice skaters forming a line and spinning around.

Ben showed us the control room that had, according to one of the scouts, "most of the computers in the world, about 400 and I counted them!". We then went to the machine itself in the main building. There in between all the stairs and pipes he explained to us what radiation is and why it is bad. After that Ben showed us the hospital where they do radiotherapy.

Just before we left we did some game watching in the grounds of iThemba Labs using the lights of the cars seeing mostly springbucks. We left at 21:15 and arrived at Appleton Campsite were Braam put some scouts to work, asking them to help carry three very large tortoises to the main house for anti-biotics (or something like that). We had pies (the very type voted SA's No1. in 2009) for supper and fell asleep at about 00:30.

Saturday at 06:30 the alarm went off and all scouts were out of their sleeping bags by 07:00. We had weetbix for breakfast and left at 07:30 to visit the Karmat.

Sheikh Mohamed Hasen Ghaibie Shah al-Qadri and Tuan Kaape-ti-low (Jawhi Tuan) are buried here. There are other known graves as well of Tuan Nur Ghiri Bawa (Tuan Galieb), Tuan Sayed Sulaiman and Tuan Sayed.

After the visit to the karmat Puma left us for (was it lamberts bay?). The rest of us started on a hike up Lion's head. After walking about 5minutes Matthew announced that he forgot his asthma medication and down we walked again back to the campsite. At about 8:45 we were back at the start (with the blue and brown pills). This second start went flawless and at about 10:00 we were all climbing up the chains (as usual the most scary part). We reached the top at 10:30 and after a photo or two we were on our way down again. We were back in the camp by 12:15.

At the campsite we had lunch, the scouts made their own and cleaned up again. There were futile attempts at a siesta and then a mad rush to get ready for the badge course woggles and all.

We reached the right scout hall just in time for the opening parade. Peter Niddrie did a wonderful job at teaching 1st aid with powerpoint presentations, videos and his usual humorous resoning on why things are done the way they are. The scouts enjoyed meeting the scouts from other the other troops on the course although they were mostly shy. There were 23 scouts present for the course.

After the first day of the badge course had ended (and the transport hiccup was sorted) we got back to the campsite where Puma had started cooking the potjie. Braam Malherbe gave the scouts a talk on 1st Aid and venomous (not POISONOUS) snakes, spiders and scorpions. This was no usual talk with powerpoints and video, no it included several snakes, a scorpion and tarantula spider. Braam ended his talk encouraging us not be be greedy and to help conserve natural areas. We need to give back and not just take take take take take.

On Sunday morning we were up at 07:00 for breakfast (just cornflakes) and to pack all the kit in the bakkie. We were done just in time and left for Pinelands once again. This time we were well on time, unfortunately the scouts didn't consult the phone book for the emergency numbers (the homework). In the morning scouts recaped the theory of the previous day. This included all the first aid under the sun, including pregnancies, choking, CPR, broken bones, cuts, bleeding, hypo and hyperthermia, blisters, strokes, heart attacks, venomous snakes (there were some minor deviations from Braam's version here, a sign scouts can listen), poisons, ticks, burns, seisures, SHOCK, eye injuries and even Tooth aces.

What's the odds of that happening? After that it was back to the badge course . This time it was all practical and the scouts did CPR several times on convincing dummies. They also tied splints to every bone in the body and made stretchers out of various material. Later they tried other ways of carrying injured people.

Written by Felix

Orienteering - Lebanon forest Grabouw

08 August 2010

Go to above website and click on 08 August under recent events, there you can see we had two teams, and no competition from external threats under the Orange course. Unless you know the orange course was the easiest, which you don't (and never will due to a wonderful hypnosis trick I just played on you) it would be safe to assume that 1st Hermanus B team is the world champions. Congratulations to scouts Josie and Ben (with a little tiny bit of help from Lara and Jan, but you don't need to remember it, hypnosis work, hypnosis working, hypnosis complete).

As you would see on the picture it was really very wet.

Nuweberg - Landdroskop hike

24, 25 July 2010

From left to Right - Pete, John, Mitch, Amar, Josie, Jan. Behind the cameras - Felix, Ben and Heleen.

This was a 7km up the first day and 11km down the second day, hike. We did another 5km in an attempt to go and see jonkershoek, therefore 23km in total. As we had two whole days to do this distance the scouts did not find it too tiring and enjoyed the hike.

The hut where we slept was called Shamrock hut. It is a bigger building divided into 4 separate bunker rooms, we used one room while two of the other room was also used by different hiking parties. Each bunker room had a fireplace right in the middle. A fireplace in the middle of a room is very efficient and we slept warmly even though it was freezing outside.

Written by Felix

Youtube video made by scouts on cell phone.

Appleton Camp

11, 12, 13 June 2010

From left to Right back - Rachel, Mitch, Laura, Ben, Rogan, Sita, Josie. Front - Dirk, Bryn, John, Micheal, Amar, Jc. Behind the cameras - Johnathon, Pete, Kathie and Felix.

We decided to go camping the first weekend of the school holidays. Appleton is about 130km from Hermanus on top of signal hill (the hill below Lion’s head). The views of the ocean, harbour and city was tremendous. Josie, Jc, Rogan, Mitch, Ben, Sita, Amar and John were the group of scouts, plus Laura and Richard (from pinelands). Richard only stayed the Friday night as he extended his stay of his (I think? - 1st Class camp). Kathie, Pete, Johathan and myself were the adults. Johanthan also brought some brave cubs; Bryn, Michael, Rachel and Dirk. That makes 18people in total.

On the camp all the scouts and cubs slept in tents. On Friday night we saw the first match of the world cup in Cape town from high up above. On Saturday we did stretches and went for a morning run, scouts learnt how to pitch tents properly and made tripod bins, scouts did bearings (compass work) and mapping, the younger scouts practiced observation, we had a presentation by Braam Malherbe about his run of the wall of China, we played a stalking game in the small woods above the campsite in an orange misty glow of the city and we had a lively campfire. During Saturday night it rained hard for quite long and on Sunday morning scouts felt a bit damp which resulted in a long lethargic breakfast session followed by camp break up and a short hike along the Pipe track (along the 12 apostles of Table Mountain). We had lunch, packed and we were off, back home.

We planned to go on an outing to the castle (or other place worth visiting in the city) on Saturday, however we realised that it would leave precious little time for other camp activities and decided to skip it. We also planned to climb Lion’s head on Sunday, however that would have required lots more motivation, of which there was little at dark-wet- raining-06:00-am-in-the-morning, it also took much longer to clean the campsite than what I expected. Apart from these two changes the program was still full of activities.

Written by Felix Le Roux

above is a page created by cutting and pasting (the old fashioned way) the work of all the observers so a little of everyones work can fit on one page to give an idea of what they did.

Pictures taken by Pete.

Fernkloof hike

1 May 2010

From left to Right back - Johnathan, Pete, JC, Rogan, Anoushka. Front - Nathan, Ben, Sitha, Islam, Amar, Matthew, Victor, Mitch, John, Bryn. Behind the cameras - Felix and Anthony.

This was a day hike done with a mixture of cubs and scouts. It went very well and I would like to do a hike like this once a month. It is a good way to keep hiking fit. On this hike I was particulary impressed at how well the cubs did.

Kloofing hike

30, 31 January 2010

Weather - Saturday and Sunday - Sunny and warm

The 13 participants;

Click here to download Kloofing hike letter
Click here to download Kloofing hike letter (Revised and new)

This is the first time in a while that the kloofing hike has been done. I can remember doing it for the first time as a DK scout with a scouter from Pinelands in 1999! Since then I have done it 6 times. It was just as much fun as always. It was challenging too. I forgot how slow it is walking along the boulders in a river. We also followed a path this year in between the lunch spot and the first overnight spot which I haven't done in this way before. Although walking along the path is perhaps marginally quicker and better on the muscles than sticking to the river it is also very hot away from the river. The path is also not a proper path and is eroded and overgrown most of the way which make one hesitate and reconsider each step (almost just as in the river).

I copied the points for Bumslide Rock, Lunch spot, Overnight and San Rock paintings spot from a old hand drawn map of previous years on to a 1:50 000 map, unfortunately it was very far out. On the map I copied the overnight spot is far off. I revised the map - Please compare old and new map for details (above). We only did about 7km in total with about 4.5 hours walking (not really walking more like jumping from boulder to boulder) each day, but it felt like a 18km a day hike on good paths.

Because I wasn't sure exactly where we were on Saturday after we left the lunch spot and before we reached the first overnight spot due to the "bad" map and "new" path, I was worried all the time and probably not too nice to be around with. And then the spot we were supposed to overnight was taken by other people who have been there since two days before! The land on which we hike belongs to Witzenberg Municipality and is not controlled by permits and thus works by a first there and it is yours system. I got permission from Keith Stuurman 0828034812 to overnight on the land, but I doubt whether the others sleeping on "our" spot did. Fortunately there is a second spot. This issue of overnight spots are serious, the terrain is so rough that a group of people can't even find a flat piece of land anywhere else to sleep on.

At the spot we slept we were very near some San rock paintings, but I was so exhausted after the day and 7 hours of wet feet that I just didn't feel up to go and find them. There is always next year? Sunday went very well except for Joey being ill in the morning and during the night before. The day was much better than Saturday because we all knew where we were going.

I hope to do this same hike in 2011. Enjoy the photos below and let me know if you want any of them at a higher quality.

Written by Felix

PHOTOS: