11th Eastbourne (St Richard's) Scout Group

What is the single most important thing to a Scout Leader when striking camp ?

The SUN ! - and thankfully today Austria did not let us down, it has been baking hot all day, which has meant we were able to get all the tents down clean and dry, which is a huge bonus.

The scouts were very good today, all of them got stuck in to the hard work and we had the whole site packed away and were ready to go by 1400, right on target.

The camp-site by then had already started to return to a park setting, the change happened very quickly, it was in many ways sad, but at the same time our thoughts were starting to turn to home.

There were many goodbyes today, the scouts saying goodbye to our austrian partner troop and visa versa, and our sub-camp leader Micha came and shook the hand of each of our scouts to say good-bye, a nice touch.

Then Nic, Neil, Lorraine, myself and Benjamin said goodbye to the troop as well !

The scouts have now left the site and are at the airport, all of them are in very good health and in pretty good spirits considering they are very tired, and I know they are now all keen to come home.

We have just reached our first overnight stop on the road trip, and we are exhausted too, we'll get a good night's sleep before heading off on the long part of the journey tomorrow, one further overnight stop, and then the last leg on Saturday.

The scouts have done all of their families proud this week, representing Eastbourne, East Sussex and the UK at a large international jamboree, their behaviour has been excellent (no of course not ALL of the time, but they are kids after all !).

I am sure they will all be very pleased to see you at the aiport, and will have many tales to tell, just don't expect to get much sense out of them until they have had some sleep !

Wednesday was a day for sorting kit out and tents out ready for taking down on thursday, and a chance to do some last minute on site shopping.

During the afternoon we took most of the scouts for a walk to Laxenburg Castle, as it was on the far side of the castle grounds from where we were camped (can't imagine why they put us so far away !).

The castle was beautiful in a fairy tale sense, and the scouts were able to get some good photos from across the lake.

We returned to site and had supper before heading off to the closing ceremony.

Closing ceremonies are a very difficult thing to get right, but the Austrians nailed it, there were the usual speeches and solemn moments (which are important but a little dull when mainly spoken in German), but it ended with a live band who were simply awesome, the scouts were a little quiet during the ceremony, but when the band came on they went nuts !

It was a real party atmosphere, and all being well I got some good video of it for you to enjoy.

It was a time of mixed emotions as always, but it ended on a high (and loud) note, helped along by the glowsticks I supplied to brighten things up !