Camping
This one time, at scout camp.

Our first, unaccompanied camping trip. Sans leaders. Get in.

We took a tent, and that was about it in terms of 'official camping gear'. The only other items we took were about 40 Kilos of assorted fireworks, a couple of crates of Skol, some bread and bacon, 5 packs of B&H.

We got to the camp, and probably because it was sleeting, -2 degrees, and dark 20 hours a day, we were the only ones staying.

We spent 2 days, launching rockets at the ENORMOUS gas tank round the back of the camp buildings. Imagine one of those large oil tankers you see being hauled up and down the country, it was that big. But quite clearly labelled with things like "GAS" and "Danger of Explosion" and other irritating stuff.

It would not, for the life of us, explode. We gave up on firing at it, only for the puny rockets to bounce off it, and for a while it was far more interesting to set them off inside the games room. Thats quite fun, launching really big rockets indoors. Its a rush and no small amount of scary.

On the last day, we climbed on top of the gas tank, and set about loosening the hatch. It was secured by about 12 large bolts. We nicked a wrench out of the gardeners shed and loosened them all.

Suddenly there was a huge whoosh as the gas escaped. We toyed with the idea of firing a rocket now but as one of us was sitting on the tanker we reluctantly decided not to.

We waited a while and the air was rich with the weird chemical they use to make gas smell. Then we lit a little bottle rocket. The air seemed to ignite but quite gently. A rippling whitey blue-ish orangey fire cloud expanded quickly and the noise was strange. Its a bit like the island in Lost when it jumps in time a bit. This wave of fire, just went everywhere, all around us. It was very cool. One of us noticed that our hair caught fire, which stinks incidentally. It lasted about 30 seconds and eventually the fire kind of evaporated upwards in a pleasant sort of mushroom cloud style.

It was all nice and serene really, but looking back now, it seems quite utterly insane that we blew up a giant gas tanker.

However, I highly recommend it. Probably not to adults, the sensiblity kicks in. But kids - knock yerself out.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 12:03, 2 replies)

This
Is lots of brilliant. Stupid, but brilliant. :-P Have a click!
(uk_viper stopped lurking on, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 12:38, closed)

Ha!!!
That's good!!!
( SpankyHanky, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 13:03, closed)