These are the details for the Journey to France
Friday 27th May 2005
20:00 Scouts from 1st Wickford and 4th Wickford plus Leaders from these Groups board Coach at ......
20:45 Scouts from 1st Ramsden and Downham, 2nd Billericay and 3rd Billericay board Coach at Ramsden Bellhouse Village Hall.
When the Scouts and Explorers board the coach they will need the following items, which will be held securely in France until we return back to UK:
Passport
E111 form (this year a new form has been introduced, they can be obtained free of charge at any Post Office.)
Permission to Camp form, Permission to go Caving form. These forms will be issued in the week before departure.
An envelope with a maximum of 50 Euros, that will be held safely in the Camp Bank.
Please note - the pick up at Billericay that was mentioned in some early publications has been scrapped.
21:00 Coach leaves for France
23:00 Coach arrives in Dover
23:59 Ferry departs Dover.
Saturday 28th May 2005
02:30 (French Time) Ferry arrives in Calais.
06:00 (approx) Stop in France
11:00 (approx) Stop in France
14:00 (approx) Arrive at Camp Site
For the latest information on the travel arrangements:
During the Journey
The Coach left Wickford at just after 8pm. The pick up from Ramsden Bellhouse was slow - mainly due to all the equipment that needed to be loaded, then reloaded because it did not fit first time. Also, Luke was the last Scout to arrive - 5 minutes after we were due to leave.
The ferry was delayed by about 1 hour so we finally made it on board the Pride of Canterbury. After 3 laps of the decks, sitting down in every restaurant that we could find and repeatedly bumping into to long lost Scout Leaders that we hadn't seen for at least 3 minutes. we finally arrived in France!
George: A fun part of our journey was when we arrived at Dover we were parked and alongside us and we used anything we could find to send messages to each other. On the ferry as well some people exchanged email addresses!!. My alarm was accidentally left on and people groaned when it went off at 7:30!! Also I am currently listening on an MP3 Player to Crazy Frog!! IT RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! L8r!!!
Kiran: We arrived at 2:00am when your all sleeping (idiots) but unfortunately the ferry crashed and not even I made it out alive once there was a gypsy and she took on the pimp daddy but he said I'm the king of ink and the end
Glen: the coach was a bit boring but the ferry was fun. I enjoyed the films.
James: hi its me!! this coach is so boring but we do get to watch star wars tho. The ferry was cool but their was a very rude man hu was extremely drunk and was about as straight as a flexi ruler but on the ferry we met some girls and I got her msn ;) c ya l8er dudes
Andy: The coach journey is boring, but I fell asleep earlier and James drew all over my face (the git) Star wars is good and we made several stop offs, at one of them there was a bouncy castle but it didn't stay inflated.
We made our second stop just outside Limoges - about 100 miles and 2 hours away. The Explorers played football, the Scouts played run outs, and the Leaders just managed to sit down quietly and discuss the weather and the size of the dragonflies that Laura had spotted.
By this point we were half way through "The Empire Strikes Back". Someone bought a French paper. The weather forecast for today 26oC and pure sun. The forecast for Sunday is Sunny start - with clouds and heavy rain moving south eastwards during the afternoon. Ooooppppps!
Tom: BORING!!!!!! I'm just listening to James MP3 player. George is annoying and stupid monk. I am cool!!! DUDE!!!
Dan: The best bit so far was on the ferry cause there was a group of girls. That we talked to and some of the scouts have got their numbers like James. surprise surprise !!!!!!!!!!!! and Adam
Hannah: The journey to get to France was long and boring! We watched a couple of Star Wars films but they were boring too! I slept most of the time, but got woken up most of the time from people getting over excited and shouting. When we eventually got there it was really nice. First impressions were great. We had a lovely tent and we were near to all of our friends. We quickly settled in and went and met our neighbours. It wasn’t long though before everyone was in bed.
James: It was the most boring thing ever on the coach but I guess I did get to draw on Andrew's face and he never did anything but sleep.
Flag Pole
James hand crafted a flag pole consisting of a free standing 120 foot long bamboo flagpole. The Leaders realised that due to very little space on the coach because James had brought:
He made 4 razor sharp tent pegs, which the US Government are currently in Iraq searching for. Naturally, whilst playing with his little chopper.