On Saturday 16November 9 Guides and 2 Leaders from 3rd Kenley Guides spent the night at the Science Museum in London with lots of other Brownies and Guides from all over the country. 

On arrival we were put into the Inventors group and given a lovely pin badge to wear, our ushers then took us to our sleeping spot in the Information Age gallery and we laid out our sleeping bags – the floor looked very hard.

We started the night with a science show – It Takes Guts in Space – we followed the journey of an astronaut’s food into their mouth, through the acid bath in their stomach, along metre after metre of pulsating guts, and then out the other end – it was informative and disgusting at the same time! After a short snack break we spent time exploring the museum – often we had galleries completely to ourselves and it was amazing. There were also lots of space inspired activities to try. We made our own lunar rovers, wearable Solar System spacelets, found out about high speed Lunar collisions with a team from Imperial College and joined the Royal Astronomical Society to explore gravity and what it is like to be an astronaut.

It was then time for bed, it did take us quite a long time to settle down as it was a very unusual place but eventually we fell asleep.

The next morning they woke us up at 6.15am – on a Sunday! We packed up and went downstairs for breakfast- we were all very tired but quickly woke up when we got to visit Wonderlab and try all the hands on exhibits. After that experience we went to the amazing IMAX cinema where we watched a 3D film about the Hubble telescope – it felt as if we were travelling into the centre of far distant galaxies.

At 10 am we joined all the other Brownies and Guides in the Flight gallery to say goodbye and get our Astronight badges – then we picked up our bags and headed round the corner to the Natural History Museum. We went in to see the Blue Whale exhibit in the entrance and then spent an hour exploring some of the other exhibits. 

Finally it was time to battle the tube and train closures and get back home to Purley – a great weekend sleepover and we would recommend it to everyone.