18+ Camp 2010

For the second time PHAB Birmingham made the journey over the channel to visit Belgium. Once again we stayed at the amazing DeCeder hotel which is a purpose built location in the countryside in Belgium 10 kilometers from Ghent. We arrived late on Saturday evening after a long 9 hour coach and ferry journey so decided Sunday was to be a chill-out day.

We had a picnic in the grounds of the hotel which everyone enjoyed – although Rachel and Matthew had to drag a trolley back from the supermarket for a mile because there were no buses or taxis on the Sunday! We then played games such as mini-golf and bowls in the grounds.

We had a great day trip to the city of Antwerp which is famous for its diamonds! However PHABs budget didn’t stretch to any of them so we did lots of walking around in groups and more affordable shopping and eating!

On Wednesday we went to the seaside in Ostend and were blessed with the best day of weather all week. This ensured that lots of the group could come out of their wheelchairs and relax in deckchairs on the beach. On average every PHABber had at least 2 ice creams!

Thursday was our final day trip and we returned to the theme park called Bellewaerde. Everyone enjoyed the day on the many scary and wet rides as well as a new 3D cinema ride about cartoon turtles!

After four days of successive day trips we spent the final day relaxing at the hotel. We had pizzas in the garden for lunch and then we had a BBQ and party on the final night. As ever with PHAB 18+ this involved lots of crazy moves on the temporary dance floor we had made outside until we got asked to move inside at about 11pm!

We had a wonderful time in Belgium yet again everyone we met – both in the hotel and on our day trips – were so helpful and friendly and the 18+ group all returned to Birmingham with great memories.