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Thursday 19 September 2013

Monopoly Run | Day 3 - The Run Itself!

The day had arrived, the day that Scout Network Ellan Vannin were going to take on the Monopoly run. When I woke up my alarm wasn’t going off so I assumed I still had some time before I had to get up but when I looked at my phone I was horrified to find it was in fact 45 minutes AFTER my alarm should have woken me up. I had been so paranoid about getting up on time that I slept with my phone right by my head but in doing that I had ended up sleeping on top of it suffocating the alarm. So then began 15 minutes of manically getting ready, luckily I am able to do it fast due to years of camping with the scouts.


Today was a special day for another reason, it was Tom’s 19th Birthday. I have known Tom for 9 years and although he is only 18 months younger than me, I have always thought of him as young. The thought of that little 10 year old I met all that time ago being old enough to leave school made me feel old. It shows how the significance of an age gap changes as you get older.

At 7:22am we were off. First stop was the train station and onto London Paddington and into the capital. We were the 2nd team to set off but luckily it was judged on the time we took rather than the first team back. In order to complete the challenge we needed to take a photograph with at least one team member at each point on the monopoly board and every photograph had to contain a laminated sign that we had been given by the organisers. This was to prevent us splitting up or using a photograph taken on a previous day.

As we saw it there seemed to be two tactics for the day; either find the nearest tube station to the road we wanted and simply hop on and off the tube all day, or group the roads together and do some walking. This is where our secret weapon came in. One member of our group, Andy, new London very well, with that and the fact scouts had defiantly prepared us all for walking we went for the not-as-many-tube-rides-more-walking method this would save us time going up and down stairs, waiting at platforms and navigating the tube network. I must admit though towards the end of the day as we got more and more tired the tube became our preferred method of transport.

As well as the points of the monopoly board we also had challenges to complete and a list of our things to find such as the counters used to play with; dog, hat, boat etc, and free parking, jail etc. For the challenges creativity was encouraged so our aim was to get pictures and videos which were as unusual as possible. To provide more incentive for this there was a prize for the best picture. The photograph we entered was one we took very early on in the day. Lissy had bought us all traffic cone hats (don’t ask me why but they were cool!) so when we found a row of traffic cones we knew what we had to do.



The day started quite slowly as we did all the outer points but this gave us the perfect chance to work on some of the challenges

Visiting Platform 9 ¾



Visiting Baden-Powell House



Free Parking



By the end of the day though we were getting photographs left right and centre. I have to say one of the highlights for me was visiting Buckingham palace, Horse Guard’s Parade and the Houses of Parliament because they are all incredibly beautiful.

Northumberland Avenue



Finding a Solider – House Guards Parade



After an incredibly tiring but enjoyable day we made it back to the campsite in 13 hours and 29 minutes. The winning team was the team to complete all the points on the monopoly board in the quickest time and there was separate prize for the challenges. As we attempted all the challenges (the only team to do so!) as well as the basic board we took twice the time of the winners but we still managed to come third out of 8! We all so picked up the prize for most points in the challenges and best picture, leaving few prizes for the other teams, woops! I’m not sure we will be invited back….








I am incredibly proud of Scout Network Ellan Vannin, we worked very hard had an amazing day and most importantly won loads of medals! Well Done Team!

The Final day of my adventure in London will be posted tomorrow. Be prepared for the traumatic story of our journey home! Also I will be posting a video or two about this adventure to my YouTube channel so if you want to watch that subscribe to my channel so you can be told when it is unloaded  by clicking the link below:

Izzy

xxx

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