This year was the 75th Anniversary of the first ever World Camp, so to celebrate they held another one at Foxlease in Hampshire! For one week the house and it's surrounding grounds were taken over by 3000 girls from over 55 countries including 2 of our very own Heathfield Rangers, Laura and Helen.
We stayed on Central Park subcamp, right next to the entrance so we could see exactly who was coming and going, along with most of the Sussex East, Sussex Central and New Zealand contingents. The rest of the girls stayed on the Forum subcamp, just down the road. The first day was very hectic, we all piled onto our coach from various meeting points and headed off to Foxlease. It took 3 hours in a baking coach with dodgy air conditioning, but we should be glad we didn't have to travel for 9 hours on an un-airconditioned train like the girls from Scotland. After unloading the coach and arguing over which tents we were going to use we set about the task of eating lunch and thinking about what our time at Foxlease might involve for us. The opening ceremony was on Sunday. A fanfare, the Chief Guide and even some parachutists dropped by to make us all fell welcome ( a pity we couldn't actually seee them because of the tree we were under, but it did cool us down. We learnt songs (world camp at Foxlease 1999 yeah!), welcomed everyone and got to see how many people there were actually there. And there were a lot! People had travelled from everywhere to come to this camp, Monserrat, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway, Mexico, the list is endless!
A week packed with activities followed. There was the opportunity to abseil, rock climb, windsurf, learn crafts, circus skills, ski and lots more. We were also all sent on a survival event in the New Forest. We were given a map, a compass and pointed in the right direction before being sent off to find the incident posts and our final destination. It was hot, the hike was long and thank god for Mel, or else I'm sure we would have all killed each other! The hike ended at a scout camp 5 miles away (but it felt like 500!). We then had to build a shelter and cook rice, onions and carrots in some tin foil. That was our dinner. If you're partically partial to half cooked rice with raw onion then that's fine. It's hard to cook properly when you're being shouted at by a scary man to hurry up and do an assault course. And this course even consisited of practically throwing yourself in a river (and spare clothes were not on the kit list). Well, after all that 5 of us spent the night in a shelter big enough for 2. Well, what else can you do with a plastic bag?
Thanks to everyone who organised the World Camp, and especially to Carolyn Lapping, Sarah Goldsmith, Mary Page and Shelley, our leaders. We had a great time!
© 1997 kjedelig@aol.com
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