Saffron Walden Jailbreak 2022

First Jailbreak experience from a leaders perspective.

We arrived at the start location, which was kept secret until the night before, the place was buzzing with eager Scouts and Leaders chumping at the bit to start the long journey to the finishing point which we found out was Skreens Park Scout site.

Armed with a set of maps, locations of camp sites and bonus life checkpoints we started across the unfamiliar countryside, six Scouts and two leaders made up our team. It wasn’t long before we realised how difficult the task to avoid getting caught was going to be. Keeping too footpaths was our best way to keep away from the clutches of the ‘evil catchers’. After four hours we found a small pub which suddenly became a toilet break. Unfortunately being on a main road highlighted our group to the catchers, first lost life! But the lovely pub landlady gave us all free drinks (non-alcoholic of course) and the catches provided chocolate snacks and refills of water.

We continued on our journey and navigated around the back of Stansted Airport, identifying all the different planes did help to forget about the sore feet. By dusk we were approaching the A120 unfortunately with limited crossings left us exposed and our second catch was made. Feeling a bit down the Scouts smiled and kept going, with just an hour to go to hit the campsite exclusion zone we were caught again. Luckily this was to be the last time we were caught.

At 9.30pm we reached out campsite, pitched the tarps and tried to sleep in a field of rustling bivvy bags. At 6:00am we woke up and started day two, the final stretch to the finish line. All of us were pretty tired and hungry but together we battled through the aches and pains and advanced closer to the finishing point. All the Scouts had never experienced this type of hiking and some kit was maybe not have been the best. This did impact the teams speed, but the togetherness and belief that they all wanted to finish inspired them on.

32 miles in 24 hours is a fantastic achievement carrying a rucksack, they finished the event together and came third out of five invitation teams. Overall, they learnt to navigate, work as a team, support each other and dig deep when needed, roll on next year to regain first place.

Scout team: Olivia, Eliana, Anna, Cooper, Luke & Big Sam
Leaders: Gavin & Paul