Scout Jamboree, AJ2016

As mentioned in this month’s 12 of 12, the beginning of 2016 brought with it the triennial Australian Scout Jamboree, back at Cataract Park in NSW again as it had been in 2010 (whereas three years ago it was in Queensland). With the Jamboree being around 12 days long, and with the Tasmanian contingent staying on for a few extra days afterwards to do some sightseeing in Sydney, and with me going up a few days early to be part of the Tasmanian advance party to help prepare things I was away for about 19 days. To all intents and purposes I only had one full day off during that time and so it is, perhaps, not surprising that I came back completely exhausted and I keep falling asleep at work!

Anyway, here are a few photos and words to give an overview of the occasion.

As explained above, I headed up to the Jamboree site a few days early with several other Tasmanian leaders to prepare our campsites. We worked as a big team to set up the big dining shelters, one on each of the six sites, and then there were two leaders per site to set up all the tents and other equipment in readiness for the incoming hordes. We had about three days to get things ready, and made good time despite the hot weather and the need to relocate a few tents. It wasn’t all hard work: the Tassie team had a very pleasant new year’s eve get together (although I don’t know that any of us stayed up to see in the new year because we were all pretty tired), and we had an amusing new year’s day exploration of the hills above Wollongong, searching for a lookout and some icecream (a task you’d think would be easy with seven adults in the car and three GPSs … but, no!).

On the 2nd of January the hordes arrived, dragging their bags behind them and full of excitement for things to come.

The official opening was on the 3rd, and then it was time to get into all of the activities. This was challenging for the first few days as we had over 70mm of rain in 3 days, leading to wet clothes, muddy ground, and some activities being cancelled. However, we soldiered on, the weather improved eventually, and the Tasmanian contingent leaders managed to find a laundry to wash and dry some of the clothing, since some of the Scouts were down to their last dry outfits. The other challenge for the first few days was to sort out the catering supplies; let’s just say that the icecream that we received one night wasn’t quite as frozen as we might have hoped and so I resorted to interesting measures in order to deal with the last dregs of it.

The weather started to improve on Day 4 or so, which is when it was the turn of half of our troop to visit a water park (where the water, unlike the rivers running through our campsite, managed to stay where it belonged). This was an enjoyable day out for me as I could take part in the activities too, and not have to worry too much about what the kids were up to. Yes, I even went on the funnel web ride (shown below), although we had almost as much fun (though slightly less adrenaline) floating around the rapid river (I’m at the back right).

There were lots of onsite activities as well, and I spent a bit of time making my way around the whole Jamboree site trying to track down the Scouts from my troop so I could take some photos. On one occasion I was lucky enough to be offered my own turn at abseiling which was fun.

I had one proper day off during the Jamboree, and used part of it to do a caching run which took me down to the nearby Cataract Dam, which is an impressive piece of engineering. Unfortunately I mistimed my return trip and just missed the bus I wanted to catch which kind of messed up my plans, and so it wasn’t quite as relaxing a day off as I wanted.

By the time we reached the 13th we were all getting ready for a change; the only trouble is that the weather had now heated up, and so it was very warm come pack up day on the 14th. It was with no small sigh of relief that we managed to get everything back into the packing crates and on time.

The Tasmanian contingent then moved to a nearby different Scout campsite, where we stayed for three nights so we could do some additional Sydney sightseeing. We caught trains (I just love trying to keep track of 31 kids on public transport*), and took in the views from the Sydney Tower and then walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and then on the following day we visited Taronga Zoo.

On our final night before travelling home, after we’d returned from the zoo, my own troop and another of the Hobart-based troops must have come close to setting a record for ordering Domino’s pizzas, consuming 64 pizzas between the 78 or so of us as we sat in the natural ampitheatre of the campsite. It was an enjoyable occasion however (and, from a catering point of view, was only rivalled by the previous night’s visit to a local pub for a counter meal: we’d forewarned them, and they coped admirably with the hungry hordes!).

And just before the buses arrived the following day to take us to the airport, the 200 or so members of the Tasmanian contingent (not counting the few who’d had to leave early) got together for a final photograph.

All in all, I think the kids had a really good time. Jamborees are not, I confess, my most favourite Scouting event of all (and being a Jamboree Troop Leader can be quite demanding at times), but it was nice to have the thanks of kids and parents at the airport when we got back and I’ll certainly have plenty of good memories of the occasion as well.

* Yes, I’m lying.