At 05:00 hours on 24th July 1998 somewhere in a car park, members of the 7th & 8th Cambridgeshire FSE Scout Group were about to embark on a journey into the unknown. It was a clear summer's morning with excitement filling the air. With the kit loaded, everyone started to jockey for the best seats in the minibus. After what seemed like a game of musical chairs we made our move for Dover, coal trailer in tow.
The first five minutes of the journey were in silence as everyone packed their kit again in their minds to find the item they had left behind.
In total 14 members of the group had made the decision to go on this venture; this was made up of myself and one other Rover, four helpers, two leaders and six scouts.
Now that realisation of anything left behind was now staying behind and it was time to make what we could of our home for the next two days. We were making good time to meet the 07:30 check in time at Dover for the 08:15 sailing to Calais. It was time to make the final check and collect all of the passports together. With this being done it reminded me of an incident the previous week.
There was a knock at the door on the afternoon of the 15th July. Behind the door was a worried looking Lard (2nd Mate of the Rovers) clutching some forms. After two days of searching his flat and his parent's house he had thrown in the towel and arranged to get an emergency passport done the next morning. One problem, he needed to find someone to sign the forms, this was to be solved by my mum who was eligible to do the duty. Having met him earlier in town I had been expecting this to happen, but as you all know when one thing goes wrong it all goes wrong. The reason for Lard being in town was to get the photos to be taken in with the forms for the passport. This is a simple task when you have plenty of time to do it but when you need it most you find the only machine in our town is out of order. After using some grey cells Lard remembered a chemist in town that would take passport photos manually. By 11:30 the next morning Lard was an owner of a new passport.
We arrived at Dover dock just before 07:30 and proceeded to the check in gates. With all of the documents checked and accounted for we drove straight on to the Sea France MANET. As anyone who has been on a car ferry would know, they use the method of stack 'em and rack 'em, and it is a race to get out of the vehicle before you get trapped by another vehicle parking near by. This was done double quick time because everyone had one thing on his or her mind, to get the cafés before everyone else for breakfast.
After a smooth crossing of the English Channel we were on the road again all
be it the other side. The next stop was Karlsruhe, Germany and the Hostel
that would be our bed for the night. The trip through France was uneventful
but once across the border into Germany we had some entertainment in the form
of the Autobahns. The Germans have one of the safest driving records in the
world but have no speed limit on the Autobahns, doesn't make sense? After
four hours of watching every type of German engineered sports car doing 100
MPH plus in the fourth lane our junction had arrived on the Autobahn merry-go-round.
Still dizzy from the ride on the Autobahn we took an hour to find the Hostel.
To be continued…