If you wish to see what the campsite is like please visit Vässarö's own website.
On Saturday 4th August we all met at Ric's house at 12:30 to get the mini-bus to Stanstead for an 08:30 flight!! Although, at the time, this seemed to be a little early everything fitted in very nicely and we were soon airborn with no major problems with the infamous 'Stanstead queues'. The only holdup was Mick - this time it was his toothpaste in his hand luggage not in a 'little sealed plastic bag...' - thankfully his knife, fork and spoon were in his main rucksac.
The hostel (a high-school which became a hostel for the 6 week summer break) was perfectly located in a quiet residential area 10 mins walk from the centre. The 'beds' were interesting...we were sleeping on the floor of the gymnasium, due to an oversight with our booking!! As it turned out this was a good move, much more fun and we also had space to dry our wet tentage on the return journey. There was a good kitchen and dining room, which we comandeered for our evening meal - cooked by a combination of Explorers and Leaders, after a trip to a local supermarket.
The next day we were up early and off to the bus stop for the 3 hour journey to Vassaro. We travelled on ever decreasing road sizes, changing buses once, and ended up walking down a track in the middle of no-where to a jetty where the boat was waiting to take us and quite a few other Scouts over to the island. On arrival, we pitched tents, put mossie cream on, booked in, put more mossie cream on, and took receipt of our first 'food box' and cooking equipment, and put more mossie cream on!! We had a couple of large chests full of cooking gear, two gas rings and an Ivar Stove (we call them portable altar fires).
The food was a mixture of stuff for our whole stay (porridge oats for each breakfast, jam, butter, tomato sauce, etc) and stuff for the next 24 hours (when we would collect the next box). They provided us with a leaflet with suggested menus - in Swedish - this was soon replaced with one in English as the phrasebook we had proved quite inadequate in its translations for what we had!! The food was interesting and we had some lovely meals cooked by everyone in turn - some of the meals were a challenge - particularly trying to co-ordinate everything on two rings - everyone agreed that all the meals were good and the food nice (even the strange sausage goulash - the sausage looked and tasted horrible but the addition of some chilli powder soon remedied that!). Don't forget the mossie cream.
The activities were excellent - the most popular being the sauna and sea swimming - the platform never did sink despite everyone's efforts. We went out in very small sailing boats for half a day - this was followed later on by a half day in a large sailing/rowing boat, plus a singing crew, which the instructor really enjoyed! We also went out in Canadian canoes - Mick and Izzy, Ric and Nic did the orienteering course - the others once again seemed inclined to form a raft and sing at the tops of their voices!! Campfire songs seem to be popular with Explorers - thanks Peter and Dave......!!
There were more 'gentle' activities such as tree felling, trapper trail, nature trail, craft making and putting on mossie cream. These were really popular with the Explorers - the trapper trail was quite horrific with some ingenious devices for trapping everything from squirrels to elk - the fur trade being an important part of Swedish history animals had to be killed without damage. The nature trail cumulated in a very large machine gun bunker at the very south of the island. The craft room was busy on an evening and we brought home many handmade souveniers, which I am sure you will see on the Explorers for the next year or so. Did I mention the mossies?
Once back in Stockholm we all split up and toured the 'old town' various museums and shops in small groups, meeting in front of the Royal Palace for our picnic lunch. After this we all visited the Vassa boat, a magnificent warship which sank in front of the whole city on its maiden voyage over 500 years ago. Everyone agreed that this was a perfect end to our stay in Sweden.
We arrived back in Boston Spa safely and without hitch on time, after another 'all nighter'.....some of us had notched up three of these over the past 2 weeks (Sunrise, the trip out and the trip back)....so some serious sleep catch up was required.
If there is anyone out there who would like to arrange a trip to Sweden, Stockholm or Vassaro, please do get in touch with us - mickandizzy@hotmail.co.uk and we will happily give you the benefit of our experiences - it was a fantastic trip and all 16 of us would recommend it.
Last updated : 21st September 2007