Day - 1 The Route



London and South East England

I dug out last year's sketch map of the region today showing the route taken for our 'a summer to remember' trip around the 19 Counties of LaSER and rather than reinventing the wheel I decided to just add this year's Coastal Camping route to the original. Much easier and also more interesting to compare the two.

Had a bit of a rushed day but have finally packed and loaded the car and plan to leave at about 8.00 am tomorrow to drive down to Redhill to pick up Molly, my almost-10-year-old year old niece, who's joining me for the Kent section of the trip.

 

Looking forward to meeting up with lots of you on our trip - many thanks to all of you who have made contact already, don't forget to bring your buckets and spades!

Day -2 Sandcastle flags

Sandcastle flags

If you're off to the beach then you need sandcastle flags - don't you? I thought that we'd make our own Girlguiding LaSER flags to plant in the sandcastles/pebble piles that we're going to build on each of the beaches that we visit. Thank you to Cleo, Ellie, Georgie and Nick for help in their construction. They look good don't they?

We've got loads of flags so hopefully with help from Molly and Greatstone Guides, who are joining us next Tuesday, we might build a whole city of castles on a beach somewhere in Kent. Look out for the photos of LaSER castles on every beach in the Region .... maybe!

Having decided upon, and now booked, all our campsites: Herne Bay, Deal, Romney Marsh, Bexhill-on-Sea and Angmering we can start to focus on the coastline and in particular the beaches. Please leave a comment, email, tweet or text your suggestions of where to go and linger and where to go only very briefly - your comments and suggestions will be very helpful in planning our days to our best advantage.

Choosing our campsites has been an interesting exercise. Initially I had hoped that we'd be camping almost on the beach but certainly with easy walking access. What was I thinking off? It's static caravan holiday park city out there! I don't feel inclined to pay for the whole gambit of facilities: pools, bars, evening ents and manicured park land that we have no intention of using, I guess that Guide campsites have spoiled my perception of camping somewhat. So, I started the search for 'tent only' sites and resigned myself to the fact that this would mean 'inland' rather than windswept cliffs or marran grass sand dunes, all we need is a patch of grass in a field, a water tap and flush loo within walking distance and possibly a hot shower. Then I stumbled upon glamping. There are some stunning sites nestling in the South Downs with all manner of tepees and yurts in woodland dells, campfire pits ..... and compost toilets. What?? We've spent the last 10 years moving from chemical loos on our Guide campsites to installing mains water flushing loos and now people are paying a small fortune for the pleasure of chucking a few wood shavings on their poo! Fascinating turnabout isn't it?

The sites that I've chosen all appear to be on working farms with animals in fields as our only entertainment. The reviews tend to praise the friendliness of the owners and describe the ablutions as 'tired but clean' or variations thereof- suits me down to the ground. They're also a fraction of the price of the glamping fraternity and the spend-all-day-in-the-holiday-park-because-we-have-everything-to-entertain-you-on-site variety. I perhaps should reserve judgement but I'm quietly confident that we've made the right choices. I hope that doesn't prove to be a case of 'famous last words'!

Last year's '19 nights in 19 different Counties' gave me lots of opportunity to fine hone the packing list. By mid-way through the trip we had loading the car down to a fine art and had jettisoned unnecessary kit at home on a passing-through day, it helped that I was driving an Astra and had no spare capacity at all. This year I'm driving a VW Sharan, a veritable juggernaut in comparison, but I'm looking at the mounting pile of 'stuff' and wondering whether we really need that plastic wine glass, what's wrong with drinking wine from a coffee mug? We're certainly not 'glamping' but we're not roughing it either so the odd luxury is perfectly permissable in my book - so will the wine glass make it into the box or not?

Watch this space!

email me at: pipmck@girlguidinglaser.org.uk Twitter: @PipMcKerrow

What's it all about?

Coastal camping

 12months ago I was about to set off on ‘a summer to remember’, an amazing 19 day camping trip around the 19 Counties in our Region: Girlguiding London and South East England. The trip was borne from a desire to get to know the geography of our Region better and to have a clearer understanding of where local guiding happened. It certainly turned out to be ‘a summer to remember’ and one filled with memories that will remain with me forever. Each day brought new adventures, new faces and totally different experiences from bats swooping around a remote camping barn in Sussex to the roar of the Olympic stadium crowd heard from a church garden in Bow, East London. The hospitality shown to us - I was accompanied by my son Nick – was truly extraordinary and made possible only by the kind generosity of Girlguiding LaSER members from Rainbows through to Trefoil Guild. My only teensy bit of regret was that despite the fact that over half of our Region boundary is coastline we only got to camp close to the seaside on one occasion.   

So naturally, when people started to ask me what my plans were for this summer my thoughts went to our beautiful coastline. Well, I understand that it’s a beautiful coastline but I don’t really know it…. yet! I don’t have quite so long to spend on the trip this summer and will swap camping companions mid way through. Although it was fun to move on every day for 19 days last summer I’ve decided to linger a little longer this time, spending a couple of nights in each place and will stay in commercial campsites along the way.

My niece Molly will join me for the first part of the trip, 6 nights away in Kent. Molly is a member of 2^nd South Nutfield Brownies in Girlguiding Surrey East and a veteran camper. More from Molly as the blog progresses, I’m hoping that she will be a major contributor to it!
 

Half way through the trip Nick will join me and we’ll head off for 5 nights in Sussex. Nick loved last year’s trip and recalls many details of the places that we visited and the people that we met so we’re looking forward to building on the experiences together.

We’d love to meet members of Girlguiding LaSER on our trip so please do contact me via email pipmck@girlguidinglaser.org.uk or Twitter @PipMcKerrow if you would like to join us to paddle in the sea, build a sandcastle, walk a coast path, share a picnic, enjoy a coffee or a glass of wine ……

The itinerary so far, based on campsite bookings, is:

 1^st& 2^nd August - Whitstable/Herne Bay area

3^rd & 4^th August - Deal area– with a visit to Campdowne2013 International camp, Downe on Sunday 4^th

5^th & 6^th August – St Mary’s Bay/ Romney Marsh area

7^th August – visit to WS2013, West Sussex’s International camp at Ardingly

9^th – 14^th August – Sussex coastline. Campsites still to be booked!

The blog for 'a summer to remember' 2012 can be found at http://pipmckerrow.blogspot.com