4th Grand Falls Scouts & Venturers2019 World Jamboree and the 2019 European Adventure!

Feb 14th England & Belgium

Our pre-trip begins in the capital city of the United Kingdom, London – London is one of the largest cities in the world with a population of 8,787,892 (Toronto, Canada’s most populous city, has 2,731,571)!  So basically London offers pretty much anything you could imagine!  Here’s a list of the “Top 17 Things to Do in London”

Our London experience actually begins in a little piece of Scouting heaven, Gillwell Park.  Gillwell Park was the home of Lord Baden-Powell and is now the headquarters for the UK Scout Association as well as home to a HUGE adventure camp!  Activities at Gillwell Park include grass sledging, sailing, bell boats, aeroball, revolving climbing wall, go-karts, kayaking, standard climbing wall, low ropes, rafting, canoeing, adventure course, crate stacking, archery, Jacob’s ladder, leap of faith, and an insane looking 3-G swing.  Needless to say, there is LOTS to do in Gillwell Park!

While we’re in England we’ll take the train for a day trip to the South coast and visit Brown Sea Island.  Brown Sea Island is the location of the first ever Scout Camp.  Back in 1907 a visionary took a group of kids out to camp on a beautiful island off the coast of England, and from that simple act the world’s largest peace movement began.  Scouting now thrives in almost every country in the world, and it all started on Brown Sea Island.  A highlight will be visiting the exact spot of the first ever Scout campfire 🙂

After four days in the United Kingdom we’ll board a ferry bound for Dunkirk, France.    Dunkirk was the location of the final desperate evacuation of the British and Allied forces in the early days of World War II as Hitler swept through Western Europe.

From Dunkirk we’ll take the train into Ghent, Belgium where we will stay at a local Scout Camp for two nights.  Ghent was established around 650 AD (yup, well over a thousand years ago) and grew to be one of the largest and wealthiest cities in Northern Europe during the middle ages.  Today Ghent is a very popular tourist destination as it has maintained a lot of its medieval charm.

While in Belgium we’ll take a day trip to Ypres, Belgium.  Ypres was literally reduced to mud in the first World War – over 1.5 million people died on both sides to advance the front just five kilometers; truly incredible to think of the scope of loss.  The battle of Ypres is perhaps the bloodiest and most tragic battle in human history.  To this day the Belgians stop traffic at the Menin Gate in Ypres and perform the “Last Post” ceremony to honour those who died so they could be free – we will be there to see the ceremony first hand.  They have done this every single day for nearly 100 years!  (except when the Nazi’s occupied Belgium during WWII).  Our Scouts & Venturer Scouts had the privilege of visiting the Menin Gate in 2015, and it was by far one of the highlights of the trip.  You will simply never forget the power of being there, and the depth of gratitude the Belgians have for the sacrifice of Canadians and Allied troops.

We could even lay a wreath on behalf of the Newfoundlanders that fought and died at Ypres and in Passchendaele.

Finally after our epic adventure through the United Kingdom, France and Belgium we board a train bound for Haarlem in the Netherlands to set up our camp at the Haarlem Jamborette 🙂

Posted in 2019 European Adventure, Team England 2019 by Scouter Jason with no comments yet.