8th Waterford, Tramore Scouts.

Galtees MPC.

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On the weekend of the 7th, 8th & 9th of April, 3 scouts and a leader from the Tramore troop participated in the Galtees MPC Sionnach. It was the first joint MPC / Sionnach between the CSI and SAI and hopefully there will be more as the 2 amalgamate. On this page you will find our log of the weekend, a map of our route and a few photos of the event.

Our Route:

The log (by Andrew):

7th, 8th, 9th April. M P C Log.


On Friday at about 7.30 we arrived at a place where some kind of tractor was parked, and we thought it was the car park. We stayed there for about 15 minutes, and decided to see if there
was anywhere else that there could be a car park. In the end we found one.This was at about 8.00. We got a letter and a whistle tied onto a piece of string. Our letter was Y. At 8.30 we left
to go to camp. About half way there, Stephen decided that he wanted to feed the birds with his Gorp. When we were about 3/4 of the way there, a group asked Tom if he would help to carry a
stretcher with rucksacks on it for a while. He carried it for a few minutes and dropped it and said thats as far as he could carry it. At 10.00 we arrived at camp. We checked in and started to
pitch our tents in the dark. At 10.30 we put all of our gear into the tent and tried to light the trangia. We couldn't light it, so we had to borrow Toms one. He got our trangia lighting on the
first go. We boiled some water for some Pot Noodles. We got the water out of a lake which was just beside us. After we ate the Pot Noodles we tidied up and went to bed. During the night Cathal and Stephen were snoring and kept me awake. Stephen was also making some strange noises, but I won't say what.

On Saturday, we got up at about 7.30. We had breakfast and Hot Chocolate. Then we went to the lake to wash our cups. Then we took down our tents. We took a few photos and checked out. By this time everyone was saying stuff about our letter Y. We headed up for Farbreaga, which I thought was the hardest mountain that we climbed during the weekend. We stopped a few times before we got to the top. On our way up, there was a stream and we stopped to fill up our bottles. When we got to the top, the weather was sunny and we were all very hot. We had about a 15 minute break and then we did a short bit of compass work, where we had to go a certain amount of paces at certain degrees and we had to remember the letters and pictures tied onto the orange flag. Our next task was to get to Galtymore. This is the highest mountain
we had to climb over the weekend. We passed a few check points and fell into a few bogs on the way there. At the checkpoint at the bottom of Galtybeg, we had our lunch and a rest for about a half an hour. Then we went off. When we got to the bottom of Galtymore, Cathal was too tired too climb to the top. So Tom, Stephen and myself went to the top. It wasn't as hard because
we didn't have our rucksacks on our backs. It took us about half an hour to get to the top.Then for about 10 minutes we got a lecture on hyperthermia. Then we hiked back down. Cathal was
waiting at the bottom and said he was tired because he had a blister on his foot. We had a short rest and then hiked up Galtybeg. When we got to the top, it was all downhill to the camp
It was very steep coming down, and Stephen was coming down very slowly because he thought gravity would lift him up and hurl him down the mountain. While we had a rest, I left a compass beside me on the heather. It was about 6.00 when we got to camp. We then found a spot to pitch our tents on. After that we started cooking curry and rice (which Cathal and his dad made) and that took forever to cook. When it was finally cooked, it was only warm, but it was nice. During the weekend Cathal had no Check list, no plate, spoon, cup, form and neckerchief. No wonder he told us that his bag felt very light. After we had the curry, we washed our plates
and cups down at the lake. We talked for a while and then went to bed at about 9.00. We put bivvy bags underneath our mats to stop the wet from rising. and I was at the top of the tent and I kept on slipping and pushing Cathal into Stephen and making him get all wet. Tom told us to put our clothes at the bottom of our sleeping bags and they would stay dry, but he was wrong because Stephens clothes got saturated. Some of the other scouts started singing for about
20 minutes, and after that we went to sleep.

On Sunday morning we got up at about 8.50. We said some kind of mass and then a member of staff gave us our badges (which Cathal lost!!!) We then had breakfast and after that took down our tents. Then we headed for Knockastakeen. It was foggy in places, so we went around it and then up it. When we got to the top all we had to do was to walk down the mountain and to the car park. We fell a few times but we got there. Tom didn't think his car would start, but he
filled it up with water and got a lend of tape from another group and taped it up. Then we headed home. We stopped in Carrick at a place called Jacks to get some chips. We arrived home at about 2.20, quite tired.

Photos: (Also in the Gallery)

Lough Muskry - Campsite 1

The Cliffs - Farbreaga

Galtees 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Galtymore and Galtybeg

Us 1 - 2 - Galtybeg

Campsite 2