My trip to ‘Our Chalet’ in Switzerland
Lily Harrison was selected to
represent Leicestershire Guides
at the World Guiding Centre
‘Our Chalet’ in Switzerland this
summer. She had to raise funds to pay
for her trip and this included a grant
from both the Parish Council and
from BUSCA. Here is her report:Sunday was the day we arrived in Geneva, Switzerland. We stopped there in a youth hostel just for the night, before heading to Our Chalet the next morning. As planned we eventually managed to hike up the mountain to reach Our Chalet on Monday. We were greeted by other Guides from Canada, California, San Diego, Boston and Northern Ireland.
Tuesday was a great ‘get to know you’ day, where we had lots of fun activities on site to get to know everybody. On Wednesday morning we headed off to an Adventure Park where we took part in many challenging things: a zip wire, abseiling and the pendulum swing. After eating our lunch at a beautiful castle on Thursday, we caught a ferry which took us for a ride before dropping us off to spend the rest of the day shopping. We bought lots of chocolate in preparation for a night hike which we found out was cancelled, because the weather was too dangerous for us to climb the mountain. To make up for the cancelled hike, we set off on Friday at 5am to hike to a waterfall and to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately by the time we got there the sun was in the sky! Saturday we walked (or should I say hiked, once again) to the wood carvers where we saw lots of amazing wood carvings!
By Sunday we were so tired of hiking we only managed to hike half way up the mountain before eventually giving in to the gondola which took us the rest of the way to a beautiful lake where we swam. Monday was a great day in Interlaken where we went to the Schuh Chocolatiers and learnt lots about chocolate. We then got dropped off at Trummelbach Falls where we spent the rest of the day admiring the beautiful waterfalls.
Tuesday was an upsetting day when
we had to say goodbye to all the friends
we had made. And to our surprise we
couldn’t find our walking boots
anywhere. We discovered that the Scouts
from Luxembourg had left us a leaving
present of tying all our walking boots to
the flag and hoisting them up!I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to everybody; family, friends and everybody in the village who made this trip possible for me.
Lily Harrison