France Trip 2, Part 1

On Tuesday the 19th of August we caught a ferry across the English Channel to Calais in France. We planned to spend about a month in France and rough agenda was to spend a week getting to Jo's house in Port de Lanne, have a week there before traveling to Remy and Jenny in Grasse. Then spend some time at their house on the Cote d'Azur  and another week driving back to Calais to catch the ferry.

The ferry trip wasn’t that bad because it was only an hour but I felt a little sick. When we were in England our friend Linnit had given us a little red ribbon to tie one the right handle bar so we would remember which side to drive on, even so I still had to remind dad.  We drove for a couple of hours and then camped for the night. 

The next day we visited some First World War memorials and grave yards. This was good because I learnt a lot of history, especially about trench warfare, and which countries were allies. That night we headed to Paris. By amazing coincidence we booked the same hotel as a previous visit, which I thought was cool. It was nice to stay in a hotel, even if it was the cheapest in Paris. We planned to go to the Louvre that night but I was too tired so we decided to go in the morning. 

We slept in and had to queue for a long time, but it was worth it because the Louvre is fantastic. I only got to see a fraction of it because we went to the Egyptian stuff first.We had only done a room when we decided to get an audio guide, which took about an hour including more queuing. I had waited on a bench in the Egyptian section and when dad got back we started listening, but the audio guide was only meant for one person and it was very good so dad went and got another one.

So, by the time we left the museum we had seen the Egyptian stuff and the Mona Lisa, which we raced to amongst the crowds before leaving.

As we left Paris we did a quick ride around the famous places/things like the Eiffel tower and the Arc de triumph before driving on South.

Me walking through 1 of 2000 war grave yards.

Me standing at the edge of a huge mine crater at La Boisselle. The 27 tonnes of explosive used left a mine crater is 30 metres deep and 90 metres wide.

An Australian war memorial with a statue of a digger.

A first world war memorial with bullet holes in from the second world war.

Camping on the front line

Driving down the Champs Elysee.

A picture of us in front of the Eiffel Tower

Getting stuck in a Ferrari race (sorry the pictures on the side).

A real mummy in the Louvre

Funerary servants that would work in the after-life for you.

A picture of the Mona Lisa

The Louvre museum is huge!

A statue of a king that had its arms and legs broken and was tied down because the Egyptians feared it would come to life.

France Trip 2, Part 2

After Paris we had another couple of days driving down south through the Loire  valley and other places. It was all nice driving, often we stopped to see a chateau,eat by a lake, or just admire the scenery, which suited me. For our food we would stop into a boulangerie (bakers) or a big super market. We didn’t take our trangia stove so our food was cold. Which was OK but it did get very repetitive, almost every meal consisted of baguette, butter, cheese, nectarine, salads and occasionally some cold meat. But I survived.

The next big destination in our journey was the Lascaux caves which are caves full of 30000 year old caveman paintings. Unfortunately you can't see the real caves because of preservative reasons but you can have a tour around an exact replica. This is what we decided to do. The tour was fascinating, I learnt lots of interesting things, for example because the paintings in the caves were painted in paints made only from minerals which is very rare they can't date the paintings and the date they gave to them was actually the date of the charcoal that was on the ground (this charcoal was from their prehistoric lanterns).

After the caves we drove on and camped the night amongst wildflowers on some waste-ground near a paddock full of horses. I went and patted them as I am missing my horse lots.We decided that we should go to Remy and Jenny's first because we wanted to catch them before work and school started because in France September is the time the new school year starts!

This is the most common style of art in the caves where the far leg is detached, in flickering light (candle light) they think this horse would have looked like it was moving.

The bull is one of the most common animals painted in the caves.

Also near the caves they have a zoo where you can look at all the closest relations to the animals painted in the caves.

This is a modern fallow deer, the ones caveman hunted where twice as big.

This goat wasn't at the zoo, it was at a place where we stopped at to buy cheese. I put it in because it was funny! :)

The roads we took through Verdon Gorge were absolutely spectacular.

Dad giving me a Geography lesson

A small chateau we stopped at, I couldn't believe it even had a moat.

Scout Camp

Before we came overseas I became a member of the Grafton scout group. So when we decided to go on our big trip I had the opportunity to go world scouting. I made sure my insurance was up to date and packed my scout uniform, record book and some badges to swap.

As soon as we got to London I did some research and tracked down the numbers we would need to call to get permission to visit a scout group in England. Then I found the web site for the 19th Wimbledon scout group and very soon I was able to go along to one of their meetings.

Because their scout hut is being rebuilt we did other activities at the local school, but it was still great to be with kids my own age. I was  very impressed with their uniform, which was a long sleeve green shirt with a red and green scarf, long navy blue trousers and a polished leather belt (which I thought looked very smart with the rest of their uniform).

 I was warmly welcomed into their ranks and was soon invited on their summer camp. I was only at the summer camp for 5 days because we were in France at the start of the camp, which went for 11 days. I made some great friends, and we had heaps of fun. The camp was a lot tougher than our camps in Australia because we had had to cook all our meals and have regular inspections but the toughest thing we did was a night hike, we left at roughly 9 at night and got back at 7 in the morning!  But overall I enjoyed it tremendously.

And to my amazement and delight on the last day of camp I was invested which means that I am now part of two scout groups! 

The tent we slept in.

Us washing up after we had made and eaten our dinner.

My patrol lighting the fire to cook breakfast on.

Day 10 eating the bacon and eggs we made.

Shawn wearing the sunglasses of shame.

Me and a few new friends

I had a great time and have lots of good ideas to improve our scouts.