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