TREK CARTS

When we go off to camp we just chuck all our kit in the car and off we go. However, it's not always been so.

For many years Scouts chucked all their kit on a Trek Cart and pulled, pushed, dragged and cajoled it up and down the roads, highways and byways to find adventure. Here are a couple of photos of Trek Carts, some in use.

You can also download a (believed to be from USA) document about Trek Carts and how to build one here.

1st Shanklin Trek Cart

1st Chale Trek Cart

Trek Cart on the way to Corf

Let's just look at the load on that cart. There are maybe 6 or 7 large bags, probably containing canvas Troop Tents - each around 40kg. Add personal kit, cooking equipment etc.etc. So there is maybe 1/3 of a ton on the cart. With Scouts pulling in the shafts, heaving on ropes and pushing the cart, it was off to Corf - up and down hills and across the Island. Beats playing Call of Duty!

Message from Graham: Last week when Mac gave the IOW Scouts heritage talk at 5th Ryde I said I would find the photo from when I was a Scout at 1st Shanklin in the 1980s and we used a trek cart at Corf Scout Camp on a Cub camp to move the kit and the Akela from the lower end of Corf to the top.