Caythorpe Scouts take on Rabbit Run 2024

On Saturday 12 October, four of our Scouts, going by the team name ‘Duke’s Doughnuts’, arrived at Dunham-on-Trent village hall for the start of a Very Long Night.

There were over 200 Explorers, Scouts and Leaders camping out on a very cold autumnal day. When we arrived, we checked in and set up camp in the field behind the village hall next to 2nd Grantham and 9th Grantham Scouts and made a mini-camp together. Once the tents were up and sleeping bags rolled out, we went to the Rabbit Run event briefing. 

The Rabbit Run itself took place on the Saturday night. Each team was given a map and a question sheet and each question had a grid reference attached to it. The aim was to plan a route which visited as many of these grid references (checkpoints) as possible and answer the questions, scoring the points indicated against each question. While doing this teams had to avoid being caught by teams of catchers/Poachers. Every time the team was caught, it would lose two points.

After we ate, we started to plot our route and talked strategies for not getting caught by the Poachers. Eventually it was time for our kit check and only 10 minutes later Duke’s Doughnuts were setting off. This was around 8pm.

Five and half hours later, after 14km walked, five questions answered, four times being caught and hiding in a few ditches the Duke’s Doughnuts arrived back on time at 01:32am. Looking a little muddy and very tired they sat down for some supper of hot chocolate and biscuits before going to bed.

Luckily for the Scouts it was a late breakfast, at 10am. Sunday’s breakfast was sausage and bacon rolls, which were needed after such a long night. The morning went very quickly with packing up camp. The closing ceremony was at 11am; it was very interesting hearing all the stats and funny stories from the night before.

Everyone did very well and only one team, ‘Lieutenant Dan’, ended up with a negative score having been caught seven times and only answering one question - they won the prized ‘Toilet Seat of Losers’. The winning team answered 15 questions and only was caught twice. So, massive congratulations to Team ‘Shed Co’ for winning the event!

Duke’s Doughnuts did amazingly well for their first time attending the Rabbit Run. They were one of the youngest teams taking part in the event and came 29th out of 40. After all the thankyous and round of applause for the volunteers who helped organise and run the event, it was time to finish packing up and head home. Everyone left having had a fantastic time and eager to take on the Rabbit Run again!