Rayner Trophy 2022 Report

Rayner Trophy 2022 Report

The 2022 Rayner Trophy was hosted in the mountains above Hawequas and Du Toit’s Kloof. The first day saw an ascent along the tarred road towards the Suurvlakte where the scouts got an early night ahead of a grueling second day. The Sunday saw scouts wake up at 05:00 before beginning the day.

The morning saw the scouts complete the loop from Kromrivier Hut to Kromrivier Peak before making their way to the Kromrivier Dome and then descending back towards the Kromrivier Hut. The route is not for the faint of hearted as it is a technical 6kms hike with 600m elevation gain in total. Most of the route is off the trail and required scouts to follow cairns in order to not get lost.

From the hut, scouts proceeded back towards Du Toit’s kloof pass before descending upon Hawequas where the Final Parade was held. The total distance came to 19.4kms for the entire competition.

A big thank you to the parents for their patience at final parade and their ongoing support of the scouting programme. To all the judges who volunteered a weekend to assist in seeing the competition was a success. To Kuba for arranging permission for land use. To Nigel for his support and guidance when it came to planning and executing the event. Lastly, to Mr Martin Albertus for being our guest presenter and presenting the Rayner Trophy to the Winning Patrol, 2nd Fish Hoek. Congratulation to 1st Bergvliet who came 2nd and 1st Claremont who came 3rd.

Yours in Scouting
Jóhann Harzon / Chief Judge

An Eastern Cape scout’s experience in a Western Cape tourney!!!

By Jayden Charakupa (1st Walmer Scout Troop - Gqeberha / Port Elizabeth)

The Rayner Hike took place in the Du Toits Kloof Mountains which is near Cape Town and this place is a mountainous area. We slept at the Suurvlakte which has a plain piece of land and is half way between the starting point and the top of Kromrivier Peak. The mountain we had to climb to was the top of Kromrivier Peak (which is 1452m above sea level) and Dome. There was a huge varied group of scouts that attended the event (Sea scouts, Land scouts, and Girl Guides). Bruce and Robert joined the panel of judges. There were 23 groups that participated at the challenge and each group comprising of 4 members. Weighing of bags was done first and it had to be 15kg or less per bag per scout. Uniform check was done second, but once it was done you were given permission to change into comfortable hiking clothes. Then the hiking challenge began. The whole point of the hike was to complete as much bases as you could to gain points for the team. 21 bases were placed for the first day hike and at the end was the Suurvlakte which was the sub camp and a place we were setting up for the night. On the second day the hike took longer to finish and had over 30 bases to be done. More than half of the bases included writing on paper, for instance, quizzes and games done on paper. When coming back the hiking distance was different, it was longer to arrive at our destination (approximately another 7 km was added). It started where we began till the Hawequas Scout Centre.

Competition Outcome

Unfortunately 1st George Scouts did not come first place. Instead 2nd Fish Hoek took the position with 326 points/442 points and were glorified to have won the Rayner Trophy. We came 15th place with 212 points, but when we heard that last year George Scouts came 16th place, we were proud of each other for trying our best.

Recommendation

I recommend that a Rayner Hiking Challenge should be done at Provincial and National level across South Africa.

Conclusion

• The overall benefits I got from the Rayner Hike include but are not limited to:
• Physical fitness and endurance
• Application of skills learnt from our regular meetings
• New skills were taught and some re–emphasised for example knots, time – management etc.
• Learnt team work skills and how to effectively communicate which others to achieve set tasks.

In conclusion, being a scout trains us to BE PREPARED for life.