The Delta Ventures Account of Austria

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Friday 3^rd

All 3 cubs, 20 scouts, 6 ventures and many leaders arrived on the Friday morning eager to leave all their troubles and families behind, for a 10 day holiday packed full of activities and visits. After all 40 of us had a seat on the 49 seater coach, we set off and began our 22-hour journey to the Lech Valley, in Austria. We arrived in Dover ready to leave on a 9:15pm ferry. After a some channel ferry shopping, we arrived in Calais and settled down to a night of videos and the usual restlessness of 20 scouts!

Saturday 4^th

After a nearly restless night, we arrived at our destination, and as usual, the ventures and leaders were first off to get the kettle boiling. Then came the mad rush of offloading the coach and finding your bedroom, that you would be making a mess of very quickly! The house is situated in the centre of Stanzach, through which the river Lech runs. A quick hike along the river rounded off the day, and everyone settled down for a good night's sleep!

Sunday 5^th

As the coach drivers needed a rest day, we decided to hire some bicycles and take the scouts and ventures for a round trip, either on the bikes or hiking along the river, and returning to the village along the opposite bank. The ventures hiked in the morning to the 75m suspension bridge, which we had to wobble! and returned on a forest path on the side of the mountains.

Monday 6^th

The coach drivers were now available to take us to the Neuschwanstein castle, upon which Walt Disney based his fairytale castle. A tour from an English-speaking guide took us around the castle, after which half of the group decided to take a quick hike to a bridge for the view (from which this picture was taken!). For lunch we decided to go to a nearby lake, where we also invested three of the scouts into the venture unit.

On the return journey from the castle, we stopped off at a 1300m toboggan run. A couple of accidents were bound to happen, but everybody came away from one of the best activities we did.

Tuesday 7^th

Probably the best activity of the week was white-water rafting at Haiming. The under 14s took the calmer route, while the older scouts, ventures and leaders took a rougher route. Many rapids threw the 10-man boat about like a log, and everybody was soaked. Especially those who decided to go for a swim half-way down!

That evening everybody got on the coach and we traveled east down the valley for a Tyrolean evening of thigh-slapping and beer-drinking. Most enjoyed it but some found it a bit tiresome!

Wednesday 8^th

After being informed that the view from the top of the Zugspitze was breath-taking, we simply couldn't resist. After taking the cable-car or train to the top of the tallest mountain in Germany, we all began to feel the strain of the altitude, especially the lack of oxygen! Unfortunately though, the minute we arrived at the top, the clouds came down, and we lost most of the view. The mountain had a glacier near the top though, and so we decided to go there and have a snowball fight. Everybody naturally attacked the leaders though, but we were all having plenty of fun.

That evening, we decided to take the whole group to the local rifle range, which happened to be over the road from our house! With 8 rifles, everybody was done quite quickly, but the groups were still split into two: scouts and the ventures and leaders. It was a competition with ten shots each, to see who could get the highest score. After the second session of ventures and leaders, the certificates were given out, and top three awarded bronze, silver and gold pins. The top score was the venture leader, Dave Densham with an astonishing 95 points!

Thursday 9^th

The Thursday was taken up by a visit to the world famous Swarovski crystal museum in Watten, near Innsbruck. A route through the museum exhibited the crystal makers triumphs, including the largest cut crystal in the world, and a wall of crystals weighing over 12 tonnes in total! Afterwards, most people spent more time in the shop than the museum, which proved very costly to some! We had also convinced one of the young scout leaders to join our venture unit, and we invested him into the unit in front of the museum.

Friday 10^th

After the huge success of the white-water rafting on Tuesday, everybody was eager to have another session on the river. Luckily for us, the river had risen over 1 metre over Tuesday's height due to the amount of rain over the previous days, and was 4 inches from cut-off point! The river was much more violent, and everybody in the boat was nearly knocked out at every set of rapids! Instead of taking 1½ hours to get to the end, it took us 45 minutes! The river continued to swell while we were on the river, and when we ended the run, the river had swollen to the cut-off point, which only happens about 3 times per season!

That evening we decided to take the scouts on a hike along the river to the bridge and back so that they would be tired enough to keep quiet on the coach journey home.

Saturday 11^th and Sunday 12^th

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