by Jon Neal
Rafting, Swimming, Sight-seeing.
We were woken at 6 am by Dr. Fenn, although our Patrol had been up for 5 minutes beforehand. We got dressed and had a wash. We packed waterbottles, swim kit, spare clothes into our day sack and then were called in for breakfast. This was Frankfurters and scrambled egg. We all ate up (excluding G. Page) and collected our packed lunches. We rolled up our tents extra tight (to try to stop the thieves). Finally in the morning during flag break, the Slovaks locked the gym up. They didn’t know that Chris Hillier was locked in and we only found him ater 5 minutes - but everyone wished he hadn’t been let out !
We reached the rafts at 8:05 am and boarded the wooden boxes (which were our rafts!) We cast off and went down river. Our raft overtook Peter’s who was annoyed as he always comes last ! He caught up and we joined for a bit. As we cast off, Ham’s hat (G. Toole) was thrown across. It was dunked in the water, trod on and then put on the end of the wooden pole (used for steering). His raft got ahead and after 10 minutes we caught up, only to find Tooley was upset - like a baby losing candy. Robin threw it over, but too hard and it went in the water on the other side. Ham was even more upset !
After 2 hours, we came to the end of the journey, right by the Polish Border. The Guards (armed) let us go over 4 metres - aren’t we privileged. We tried to make the Neal twins go over further so they would be shot, but they are still living (Damn!). We walked back to the coach and then went to the swimming pool, which was open air and absolutely freezing! There was a diving board (metal beam) that some people jumped off. G. Page was very scared at the top and only jumped with the help of Martin. Robin was pushed in after a big fight, and Rob Nichols squealed as we were about to throw him in, so he escaped a soaking. After changing we walked back to the coach via a volcanic crater filled with water. This was warmer but Robin wouldn’t let us swim in it. We boarded the coach and then went to an old Castle. We looked around for an hour, chaining up Ollie and the Twinny in the prison. They escaped! We walked/ran down the steep hill to the bottom. Edgar (Dave G) slid down on his knees!
We got back to the site, to find our kit as we left it (for once) and most of our missing stuff returned! We had dinner, which was soup, then pasta and a meat sauce. After dinner, we had a choice - either go to the campfire or stay at camp. The people who stayed at camp played football and basketball and went to bed about 10 p.m. The people who went to campfire sang, got wet and were attacked by some wasps (killer?) whose nest was in the fire. They quickly came back and went to bed about 10:30 p.m. The Leaders celebrated into the night about Jon Lynch getting 4 A’s and a Distinction in his ‘A’ levels and getting accepted into Cambridge, BOFFIN!!