An Aussie Scout on Scout Scoop Denmark pt 1

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An Aussie Scout on Scout Scoop Denmark pt 1

After a lot of packing, repacking and double checking the night before, I set off on the 10:40am train from Aalborg to Fredericia. Unfortunately, Jens had not been able to reserve me a seat in the non-smoking section so I was stuck with the smokers which made the 2 hour journey, less enjoyable. Though the journey seemed long it also was stunning because though it had only begun to snow in Aalborg, other areas of Jutland were covered in white. Despite the delays due to the snow, I still managed to arrive only half an hour late. At this point I found Nat, one of my fellow Aussie exchangee’s was excited as I was to see another Aussie. Then due to our loud Aussie greetings, one of the Aussies who had not been on our flight, Serena (she was from Sydney) came and introduced herself and her host brother. So we finally met Serena we then had to sign in and were given a piece of paper. We were told not to show it to anyone else. We then were called together to parade so that the leaders could speak to us. They told us that we had to find who had our favourite thing and then from that, we would find our groups. We were also told that during the whole camp, we were to speak English.

After we had discovered our patrols, we were told to elect a PL for the day, after which they were given a series of tasks for the patrols to do, because they hadn’t enough leaders, they would choose the patrol which answered the most correct answers to be assistant leaders (who would be replaced if they didn’t do a good job.) so we were given a moral dilemma, a sodoku puzzle and a series of questions which related to Scouting in both Denmark and on a International scale. The last team won (however it was rigged, it was designed to amuse us but the last group were actually leaders anyway) and received their Scoop scarfs and introduced themselves.

At this point, they gave us some important details about the hike and then our Patrol Leaders collected our maps and the Trangia (if we decided to use one) as well as money to buy food we then put any of the gear that we were not going to use on the hike into one of the leaders vans and then set off on our way..

Only one of the maps had anything on it and we were given the co-ordinance to the first
Checkpoint. We were given a Trangia and money to buy food for the hike.
So we headed off, visiting the supermarket along the way....
We stopped at McDonald’s (as a few of us had to buy lunch and use their toilet) and I
discovered McDonalds is almost the same in any country but just more expensive here (that and they have donuts) also when I brought some fries they gave me tomato sauce and mayonnaise to put on the chips (ewww)...

Anyhow we continued our hike walking along footpaths and beside the road, when after an hour I needed to got to the toilet.. at this point we were well out of Fredericia and the Danish scouts with me just told me to knock on a door and ask to use their toilet. (There is no bush in this area, its mostly agriculture and houses).

So gathering the courage I asked one of the Danish scouts to knock and ask for me in Danish (Just in case they asked me something in Danish or said something and I didn't
understand) Thankfully they explained that they were Danish scouts and that I was Australian (I think it helped that we were in full uniform) and didn't understand that much Danish. The owner of the house said yes and so, I was shown were the loo was.
just as I finished using the toilet I heard the scampering of claws...
Curious, I turned around to see Four kittens with blue eyes about the size of two cupped hands looking at me then when they saw that I was looking, Run away, very cute.....

I thanked the Owner for the use of their Lavatory and continued on with the other scouts...
It was pretty hard as the scouts kept forgetting to speak English and they told me to remind them to speak English. I did the first few times but, they would forget and start speaking Danish again. So I just ‘tuned out’ and admired the view instead…

We reached our first checkpoint and then had to find the directions to the second check
point. At which time, I discovered that after visiting our second checkpoint, we were to seek accommodation for the night (think the Christmas story without the donkey and Mary and swap everyone else with cold, slightly wet (it had started snowing), Venturer scouts.

At times it was hard to hike in the snow as the fact that some of it was hard ice covered
with a tiny layer of snow..
which meant that it was very slippery. I fell over twice and saved myself once from doing the splits. I was extremely glad I had decided to wear my splint on the hike, even though I was only carrying everything in my Snowgum backpack. I was also glad that two of the scouts who were in my patrol lived in the area and one had managed to get his friend to show us a short-cut (it involved us walking over a field as well as a path which had water on both sides). As it got dark at 4 pm we were carrying torches, glowsticks and reflector tags so cars could see us.

My Danish patrol leader explained that they do this all the time and ask if house owners
have any room so we will be able to sleep indoors, or alternatively in their barn (if they have one). We were rejected 5 times before we located a host, who, not only let us into his home, but let us sleep in his basement. It was fun but I don’t think I would do it in Australia (not knowing the people we were being allowed to stay with not to mention the leaders would have a fit) another thing would be that it would not be easy to find another house in the country if one had a big farm and said no, or you were just kept getting rejected..

It is good though, that here in Denmark they are able to do this, and still are able keep the tradition without fear of the unknown, which, might prevent others from doing the same.

We made spaghetti bolognaise and our host was lovely and brought us tea. We played some cards before going to bed. We slept in our sleeping bags, on the floor of one of the rooms in the basement.

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