Photography by Nick Hardcastle for Dhahran British Grammar School
Camp 2 October 2010
On Wednesday night we held the school’s first wild camp in Saudi Arabia. Forty three students, five teachers and four parents headed over to the sand spit on a remote part of Half Moon Bay.
The busses were so full of students and gear, there was hardly any need for seat belts. If the drivers had stopped suddenly, I doubt that anything would have moved. Once we had left the villas and beach resorts far behind, we stopped to drop off the KS4 students and pointed them in the direction of the camp – a faint line at the base of a dune on the horizon. There were a few cries of disbelief, but most were too preoccupied with packing their rucksacks, hanging huge bedrolls and mischievously unfurling tents from painfully thin shoulder straps, to worry about what laid ahead. They posed for a group photo and set off, AJ in the lead with a GPS.
A few miles down the road we stopped by a large dune to drop off the KS3 students, Mrs Chowdhry and Mrs McIntyre. They had a shorter walk ahead of them, over the dune and down to the camp by the sea. As the group got ready for their walk, they looked somewhat better prepared for their adventure, having generally packed lighter than the older students. Having said that, at least one student was scarcely bigger than her backpack.
The students happily (one assumed) on their way, we drove over the sands to set up camp at a pleasant spot near the sand spit – N26° 00.526 E50° 02.369 – where there is usually a good breeze. Within an hour, the first red faced students started to arrive, happy and exhausted. Last week the temperatures in the late afternoon had been in the high twenties, but today it was 34° and humid. The KS3 students and teachers were already at the camp, cooling off in the shade of the cars, when Elodie, Charlotte and Taysir arrived, the first of the older students to complete the walk. They were almost an hour ahead of the last boys to finish. Perhaps next time, the boys will leave the kitchen sink at home.
As the sun set over Half Moon Bay, the students finished pitching their tents and started to cook their dinner on Pocket Rockets – the great new MSR stoves Mr Green had travelled all over Al Khobar to buy. For most, their evening meal was a simple affair with Pot Noodles being the preferred menu item. AJ and Muad proved that wild camping doesn’t have to mean hardship however, cooking delicious steaks that had been marinating in a cold bag on the walk in. I enjoyed my own tuna sandwiches, but have to admit that the steaks smelled far better.
Dinner out of the way, and some students struggling to clean pans, possibly for the first time in their lives, we laid about camp chatting and relaxing. It was a peaceful scene for the most part, although Brendan’s piercing scream brought everybody running to see what was wrong. A large beetle, harmless and as slow as the Bahrain Causeway on a Friday afternoon, was ambling towards him. It appears that many of our students haven’t been exposed to the pleasures of the countryside.
Before the moon rose over the bay, Mr Green went down to the end of the sand spit to light a camp fire. He’d brought marsh mellows and gram crackers for the students to make a sticky concoction know as Smurfs. Or was it smores? Whatever, it proved rather popular. We all chatted around the campfire for a while, with groups of students going off to spot crabs and the tiny fish that sparkle in the shallows.
As the fire died down we headed back to camp, now quite invisible in the pitch darkness. The students showed a remarkable homing instinct, or at least chose the right person to follow.
After a talk about the benefits of the Duke of Edinburgh Award the students enjoyed a couple of hours of free time, chatting and messing about on the beach.
By 11.30 the camp was quiet, bathed in moonlight and cooled by a strong breeze. Most were fast asleep, although some were kept awake by the gentle snoring of their neighbours or the flapping of imperfectly designed or badly pitched tents.
Before bedtime, the students had been keen to ask for a long lie in. Remarkably though, it took little more than a “Good morning” to wake the camp at 5.20 am and by 6.30 most had eaten breakfast and packed away ready for the walk out. As we tidied up one of the students found a beautiful green scorpion, which gave us a great opportunity to explain why it is important to wear your boots around camp.
We are working hard to teach the students how important it is to respect wildlife and the environment. To this end, we spent some time cleaning up the campsite before we left, collecting quite a few bags of garbage. I strapped these to my roof rack…
On Wednesday evening the students hadn’t been too enthusiastic about walking out again, but by the time we had struck camp on Thursday morning, most of the students had decided to take the more challenging of the two options we had given them.
We had allowed the students two hours to make it to the road head where we were to meet the busses, but the first students made it in less than an hour. It was an impressive achievement, especially considering that they were carrying too many unnecessary things (huge bed rolls, picnic rugs, gargantuan sleeping bags, sets of chairs, fluorescent lights, glass jars, pillows etc), and too little water and food.
Near the road head a group of Saudi men from Riyadh were camping and enjoying the morning breeze. They called me over for coffee and then welcomed the students as they passed, giving them each a bottle of ice cold water.
As we drove off to pick up the other group of students, my car periodically shed large black bags, scattering the carefully collected garbage in new locations. Hm…
It was a very enjoyable camp and we are looking forward to the next one.
Many thanks to Mr Green, Mrs McIntyre, Mr Odell, Mrs Chowdhry, Mr and Mrs Papp, Mr Turner and Mr King for chaperoning. Thanks too to Mrs Young, Mr Rashid and the GR team and Support Services for making the trip possible.
Nick Hardcastle
