Tolmers Fire and Ice 2025 - In Review!

On the 17th-19th of January 2025 eight 5th Sittingbourne scouts with their leader and two scouts with their leader from 1st Sittingbourne went to Tolmers scout activity centre in Hertfordshire for a fire and ice camp.

When we arrived on Friday evening all of our tents were put up and ready for us to get settled in and while we were doing that skip made us some soup with pasta in it to keep us warm during the night.

During the day on Saturday we did lots of activities and some of my favourites was human hungry hippos because it was really fun grabbing the balls and putting in the net to rebound back to the rope to give us an extra challenge. I also liked the spider mountain because it was really fun climbing up the ropes which were like slacklines to get to the top and go down this really big steep slide.

There were lots of climbing things to do like a rolling rock, a straight wall and a tree shaped one which was really fun to get to. The most popular thing was probably the pedal karts going round the course three times as quick as you could.

A really funny part was when I went on the zorbs which were really good, I accidentally went upside down because I got stuck on a corner and needed help getting going again.

I didn't really like mini golf because I found that there was no challenge to it and I didn't find it very fun but most of the scouts enjoyed it as a quick little activity closer to their group in the evening or just before lunch.

There was a massive human table football tournament while we were there for the scouts, and 5th Sittingbourne came 2nd in the finals which was really exciting to watch and take part in. Some other competitions were who could climb the rolling rock for the longest and who can collect the most balls at the human hungry hippos.

Every leader made sure we were kept warm while we were there by always doing something which was very helpful so I didn't really get cold on the camp.

On Saturday evening there was a really cool disco and fireworks which was amazing to see. At the disco there were some really fun songs to dance to like the macarena and superman. During the disco one of the scouts from 5th sittingbourne started the Conga where almost all the scouts on the fire and ice camp joined in so it was really long and cool.

The disco was outdoors but it was warm as we were dancing to all the songs. Then we watched the fireworks by the lake. It was really fun after we went back to the tents and had some smores and filled up our hot water bottles to keep ourselves warm at night.

The camp was really cold but temperature stayed above freezing and I had to wear my thermals’ fluffy tracksuit, a t-shirt and long sleeved top and 2 sweaters so if you go I would recommend packing warm.

When I was there it was extremely muddy and one of my friends got her shoe stuck in the mud.

I think it would have been fun to camp while it was snowing as that sounds like a really cool experience to have even though it would be very cold.

I would really recommend this camp and I am looking forward to going again next year!

Thank you to 5th leader skip for arranging for the group to go.

Review by Sophie Friday