Kestrel pack went boating in April 2018
12 cubs, 1 young leader, 3 leaders, 3 dad helpers and 2 skippers all went boating on the Grand Union Canal. Our pack hired two 70 foot long community narrowboats from LNBP, called Lancelot and Guinevere and we had an excellent weekend of adventure!
Needless to say everyone was really excited to be on board, so excited that not too much sleep took place the first night, but after a big breakfast everyone was ready to leave – we just had to turn the boats around first. Then we set off on our 8 mile journey south from Braunston to Weedon Bec. No easy start though, the cubs were straight into working a series of six locks and then they were rewarded for their hard work with a scary ride through the long and dark Braunston tunnel. Akela is always desperate to see the light at the end of the tunnel and passed on lots of other canal phrases to the cubs while pretending to like tunnels.
Our volunteer LNBP skippers were excellent at letting the cubs take control of the boats – and manoeuvring two such long boats into locks side by side is quite a challenge but they were amazingly good at it!
No sleep required 
The cheeky tillermen 
Deep 
Taking advice 
Hard at work 
Taking a break
Everyone took a turn in the kitchen too and we definitely did not starve – we all ate all too much pie.
Classy chef 
Pie! 
Oops juice! 
Instructions 
Ketchup!? 
Pancakes! 
Yum? 
Definitely yum!
After an evening of Top Trumps and Bug Bingo … and a much better night’s sleep for the exhausted crew we turned around and went back again, via the canalside pocket money magnet and with no shortage of biscuits and cake!
Concentrate 
Making it look easy 
Lock duty 
More lock duty 
Even more 
Push! 
Pose while the lock fills 
Plain sailing
