As has happened, for the past nine years Venture Scouts from all over the county met once again for their annual Endurance camp at Easter. This year the camp was held at Gilwell Park with most of the outdoor activities taking place in Epping Forest.

Hornchurch district was well represented with teams from 3rd Upminster (Wallowers), 3rd Cranham (Sutherlands), 1st South Hornchurch (Argonauts) and 2nd Elm Park (Merlin) taking part. As some of these units had entered several teams Hornchurch accounted for more than one third of the total entries. These camps are always themed, this years being "Quest for the Golden Egg", based on the Indiana Jones films. This gave lots of scope for the activity bases, which have to be visited while following a route through the forest.

These bases included, among others, crawling through a cave system, rafting, climbing through giant spiders webs, deciphering hieroglyphics and trying to avoid a giant flying ball, all of which earned clues as to where the Golden Egg could be found. This then, had to be carried round an assault course, on he last day, without being broken.

All this, supposedly, was taking place in various countries with different time zones which caused some confusion with clocks being put forward and back and making everyone feel jet lagged by the end of the weekend, (although some of this may have been the result of the parties going on till the early hours). This may also have been the cause of some very imaginative map reading.

The camp is run as a competition with the walking legs and bases being scored and as a result of some fast walking and good teamwork on the bases the First place trophy went deservedly to 1st South Hornchurch (Argonauts) for the third year in succession with a team from 3rd Upminster (Wallowers) in second place.

All the other teams gave a good account of themselves and received certificates from the County Commissioner, Dean Milton, at the end of an exhausting but enjoyable weekend.