We arrived on the Burrows at 6.30pm on Friday. Our first job was to find a place to set up our bivvies then we all met up for a briefing about the night-ex. It was to last for about seven hours! Each person had a set number of "lives" and the objective was to get peoples lives and to find different target points. These were marked by pieces of paper, which the team had to write their names on as they found them. The team that found the most targets won. About halfway through the exercise all the teams met up because we were all looking for the same place. We decided to all stick together and all headed for flagpole 'Dune', where the officers found us and sprayed us with water guns! The exercise finished earlier than planned, which was good because we were all very tired and crashed out in our bivvies.

We were woken up by Flt Sgt Mason and the Officers at 7am. All the boys were panicking because their hairbrushes and toothbrushes were confiscated, so they couldn't make themselves look beautiful first thing in the morning! Personally, I did not notice any difference! The officers then kindly let us have some bread and the remainder of out 12 hour ration packs for breakfast. Throughout the day we carried out several exercises which included making a fire from three pieces of wood and some string. This is how Cadets would make fire in prehistoric times apparently, because Mr. Cole was there and he kept telling us. We also took part in a first aid training exercise with Mr. Shaddick where we had to move a casualty who weighed a ton! We learned different forms of communication with Mr. Cole including how to make smoke signals. That evening all the Staff decided to send out for chips which arrived just as Cdt Barney and I decided to fetch water. Mr. Cole's Portion of chips was attacked! After the chips incident we were given our punishment - we were told we were to go on another night-ex. We had another brief and then set off with our glow-sticks. These were used to help the other teams and officers locate our position. The Sea King helicopter from 22 Squadron also took part, flying over the Burrows using night vision goggles to find us and to direct the Officers to where we were. During this exercise our team escaped yet another water gun attack. The night-ex ended with all the teams meeting at the flashing beacon near the campsite. We returned to our bivvies and fell asleep.

On Sunday morning we didn't wake up until 8.45am, when we went straight into another exercise which involved reaching a casualty that was lying on the other side of a minefield. The casualty was Warrant Officer Haywood. We had the use of a metal detector to get us through the minefield and then had to carry him back over the minefield on a stretcher avoiding any mines. He weighed a ton! Each team then had to carry a jerry can full of water up a dune and back down to the camp. This was the last exercise of the weekend. We then pulled down our bivvies, cooked our lunches and then had a general knowledge quiz to finish off the weekend.