Athlone scout leader’s European adventure

Athlone scout leader Conor O'Regan recently completed a challenging trek through parts of Austria and Czechia.

Conor took on the Rover Scout Explorer Belt Challenge, which sees 18 to 26 year-olds travel a distance of 200km on foot, and 100km via public transport, while completing projects and a comprehensive log book.

Described as a once-in-a-lifetime challenge, the Explorer Belt initiative enables rover scouts to gain an understanding of the local culture and way of life. The teams must also live on a limited budget.

This year’s expedition started in Vienna on July 3, where participants stayed in a hostel before getting dropped along the train line. For Conor, and his team-mates, the 'dropping-off' point was a small town called Schwendau.

"We found a Spar and bought our food for the next three days," he said. "Over the course of the next three days, starting at 2am, we made our way through Austria by foot and completed projects along the way.

"We crossed the border into Czechia on day three. On this day, we covered a distance of 36 kilometres. We stayed in family gardens along the journey and were fed dinners. Some highlights included pork liver for breakfast, a dish called 'anything at hand', smoked trout, and the many ham sandwiches had for lunch," Conor said.

"Long days of early morning hiking followed, meeting people and navigating language difficulties, often using Google Translate."

Once Conor and his team reached basecamp, their logbooks and projects were assessed and a dinner was held to celebrate everyone’s achievement of reaching the finishing point. At the dinner, belts were awarded to the participants, who flew home from Prague airport the next morning.

Sean Mimnagh, Group Leader at 2nd Westmeath Scout Group, congratulated Conor on behalf of all the leaders and scouts in Athlone.