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A Tale of Three Hikes
This article appeared in the may 2002 Romford District News
09/03/02 Thorrington To Brightlingsea - District Sixers Camp
The first thing I have to say
about this pleasant Six mile round trip is that Dave Flynn and myself
wouldn't have felt the need to include a picturesque detour along the
beach, if we had been furnished with a Scout association approved route
card. Or perhaps I should pay attention during the briefing next time.
The cubs seemed to enjoy it, especially the muddy bits. Loosing both
shoes in the corner of a muddy cow field seems to have been the
highlight for one of the 3rd GP cubs.
23/02/02 Debden To Rowswell Hall - Night hike with 3rd GP Scouts
Realising that not all our scouts
can afford to nip up to Wales for a weekend of Hiking we decided to
organise a hike locally. Havering isn't known for its mountains and
precipitous edges so to make it more exciting for the Scouts we did it
in the dark, in winter. A serious kit check would be conducted before
hand.
The PL's completed the route plans and supporting documentation and
they had reached the conclusion that it was an 11k walk. After walking
11k on a cold but perfectly clear evening, morale was dropping. We were
still about 6k from home and certain PLs were being very quiet.
At about 1:00am near Havering Park, we hit a very muddy bridal way.
After fishing young Matthew's boots out of the mud it became clear that
the morale problem was resolved. All the intrepid adventurers returned
to GP by about 2:45am. The morning after, all agreed that wading through
the mud was the best bit.
23/03/02 Holmbridge to Harper Hill (Buxton) - The Fours Inns Walk.
This year we managed to convince
Andrew Webb who has just joined the Rowswell Venture Unit from 1st
Romford Scouts to compete in the 45 mile Four Inns walk. Our team
consisted of three leaders and one Venture. We started at about 06:45
am. By 08:45am Andrew was up to his knee in peat bog and requiring my
assistance to free him from his predicament. Not the highlight of the
hike for him but at least he didn't lose his boot.
This is about the fifth time we have entered this event. I say about
because I think we have blanked the experience of our early attempts
from our minds. The weather was glorious, almost too hot. As we darted
between the members of the congregation outside the church in Edale, I
was stopped by a Gentleman in a Kilt. He knew exactly what we were doing
and chatted for a few minutes to us about our progress in the event.
This was while the bride wrestled with a Champaign bottle whilst sitting
in the sunroof of a classic sports car. The cork was popped and we
rushed on.
We eventually finished at about 9:00 pm with what for us was a record
time of 14 hours 17 minutes. An outstanding effort over the last three
stages from our novice Andrew enabled us to overtake several teams
during the evening and we eventually finished in 17th position or 6th
if you only count teams from Outside Derbyshire. 64 teams started and 41
finished, the last one arrived home at 4:30am Sunday, approximately 20
hours after starting.
Its nice to have been involved in similar activities pitched at very
different levels of Scouting. In as little as seven years time those
Sixers could be entering a team into the four inns themselves having
cultivated their interest in hiking whilst Scouts and undertaken Duke of
Edinburgh Bronze award training as Explorer Scouts.
On the evening of June 21st All Scouts, Ventures, Leaders and
Fellowship members have the opportunity to enter teams into the Forest
Boundary Hike. This is an excellent well-managed little event open to
all the county. Some of our patrols may not be capable of finishing the
full 12 miles but they can still compete to see who gets the furthest.
Each checkpoint is manned and minibuses are dispatched from walk control
to pick up any stragglers if necessary.
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