Shrewsbury cadets gain Bronze medal at Cambrian Patrol Competition

A team of CCF cadets recently competed in the prestigious Cambrian Patrol Competition, coming away with a Bronze medal.  

The competition, which took place in the Brecon Beacons, saw six Fourth Form cadets and one Sixth Form Sergeant take part alongside around 160 other cadets in the two-day expedition.  

Clara G (G,LVI), the Sergeant for this competition, has written about the patrols’ experience.  

“At 7am on Saturday, we were we were dropped off at our first starting point with a grid reference and were set off into the wilderness alone.  

“Here started the 12-hour expedition. With our team of seven, we scrambled our way through the mountains whilst only getting lost one or two times. After a decent time of walking, we would arrive at a stand where we had to do an activity before being given another checkpoint and going on our way. These stands included all sorts of activities such as observation posts, first aid, radio and rest points.  

“The weather was hot and sunny - many got burnt and sunstroke with very high temperatures and lots of sun. However, Cambrian is never Cambrian without multiple different weather changes. At one point after walking up a very big hill we were praying for rain to cool us down. The rain came and then so did the thunder. Within seconds we were soaked through and all of a sudden wished for the sun back. Thankfully, this was nearly the end of our 12 hour expedition so we didn’t need to patrol far in the rain. 

“We then patrolled down to Woodblock 33 which was our home for that night. We set up camp and I briefed my team with the information I had been given the previous day about Sunday. Thankfully the weather had settled into a beautiful calm night. The entire camp was quiet and everyone went to bed. Luckily my section (now platoon because we were joined up with another section) had been given a later start time. This meant we had a leisurely wake up at 6 am and packed up camp whilst cooking ourselves a lovely ration-pack breakfast and trying to plaster our feet back together ready for the day ahead.  

“Naturally, we then went on another patrol. We thought we had completed Cambrian - we were wrong. Everywhere we went on Sunday we were told it was the last push, we stopped believing them. Finally, we needed to evacuate an injured soldier (of course up another hill and over uneven grassland) before we finally reached flag 7 (the end)! We were exhausted but done. 

“We ended the competition with a parade in which every section was given medals or a certificate. Our team happily came out with a bronze metal and I couldn’t be more proud of them all. The teams we supposed to be made up of 8 cadets however we only started with 7 meaning we started the competition with minus points. There were many ACF teams there who would’ve trained considerably more than us and who were also predominantly more experienced. This shows how well the team did to get the same level and even beat some of the ACF teams. We then said our goodbyes to the other teams and headed home.”