Caving in Edale, February 2012

 Fourteen hardy Explorer Scouts and leaders hired a minibus from Gaerwen and travelled to Edale YHA on the Friday night - it was cold - the next morning the thermometer was reading -9.5°C. Caving with Dave Nolan from PMA Ltd. Invested Sara and Tomos in the cave. Maybe we should start a tradition of investing people in unusual locations! Overnight several centimetres of snow fell and we were concerned that we would not be able to leave the YHA. After we had decided that Plans A and B were out, we thought about the train! Fortunately, the temperature rose considerably and we were able to drive down to the main road and get out through Winnats Pass. Of course, we had to take advantage of the snow and with some liberated plastic bags from the YHA, we spent the morning sledging. Great Stuff. What next?

As usual, high resolution copies of all the photographs are available on request.

Menai Bridge Photo Quiz

Here are the pictures and the answers - not a lot of people entered but feel free to check to see how you did.

ANSWERS – in the same order as the photographs

Coastal footpath to right of causeway to Church Island	Wall outside Jade Village	Presbyterian Church spire	King George’s playing field gate post by library
Waitrose	Gate onto Church Island	Victoria Hotel	Church Island Church windows
Railing around grave site on Church Island	St Mary’s Church clock	Chains on the Menai Bridge	Railing in Uxbridge Square (outside former Post Office)
Mile Post opposite Waitrose on wall in front of St Mary’s Church	Memorial Hall on Water Street	The Auckland pub sign	Gate post to the pier
Signpost in Uxbridge Square	Former chapel now fruit and veg “shop”	Town Council Offices	Library
Grating in main road on north side by pedestrian crossing	Hawthorn House	Post box (the old location)	Entrance gate to pier
Top of Pier	Mostyn Arms	Tafarn y Bont	Entrance gate to Church Island
Door to Church Island Church	Coed Cyrnol car park entrance	Top of Shell garage	Scout sign on Hall

Resizing the Pictures

I have resized the pictures in the panels below in the hope that they will load faster for those people with a slower internet connection. Each picture can be clicked on to give you a larger picture. I have all the original images used to make the panels so if you want one in particular, let me know.

SAR-203 RAF Valley

The Explorer Scouts visited 203 Squadron at RAF Valley to see the operations of the Search and Rescue unit. The mountain rescue team operate all over Snowdonia where we are searching for aircraft remains and it was great to see how they react and respond to emergencies in the hills. Many thanks to all at RAF Valley for the opportunity to visit, especially Paul.

Thanks to Andy for the group photo.

Finding Aircarft Remains in the Afon Anafon - Sunday 10th July 2011

On Sunday, ten of the Explorer Scouts parked near Aber Falls and walked into the Anafon Valley, a quiet hidden spot. We photographed several historic features and recorded their positions for the National Trust. We had lunch at the reservoir, found a couple of geocaches but only found one small piece of a Heinkel He-111 that crashed on the hillide during WWII.

Explorers help at the Beaver Yogi Bear Camp - 8th - 10th April 2011

Jenny the Beaver Leader and her team organised a Yogi Bear themed sleep over for the Menai Bridge Beavers and the Explorers went along "to help". We ran training activities for them on the Saturday and games on Sunday - water pistols were the order of the day! We took advantage of the great weather and Joe's fireworks to try our hand at sparkler writing - these are the ones that worked.

 

 

 

Aircraft Remains in Cwm Lloer - Sunday 20th March 2011

Our first expedition into the hills to find aircraft remains for the National Trust took us to Cwm Lloer. We could not find the remains of the Havoc that was posted as being here but we did find considerable fragments from an Anson that crashed near the summit. The weather prevented us from going too high that day but we did get some great views of Tryfan.