29th April 2016 by Claire Shadbolt
“Shall I tell you the name of the Bridleway? I am walking over to to read it. It says, “Permissive Bridleway.”
On a cold April morning, five brave scouts embark on an expedition to walk to Biggin Hill and back.
We started off by walking 5 minutes to Addiscombe to buy food supplies for the weekend. We will overlook that they blew the budget by 50%. We can return to keeping in budget for another event.
Next step – they are off, walking, by themselves for 13.5 miles. Photographic evidence seems to suggest that actually they went to the closest sweet shop and bought another load of supplies – energy drinks and sweets. It kept them all in good spirit.
They were running a bit late for their first checkpoint, so the leaders checked in on them using mobile phones. They had strayed off course. It was a challenge to work out where they were when they did not know and the mobile coverage was poor. That is the time of the famous quote, “Shall I tell you the name of the Bridleway? I am walking over to to read it. It says, “Permissive Bridleway”. He now knows that a permissive bridleway is a bridle way (which could be for walkers, riders, cyclists, or any combination) whose use is allowed by the landowner.
We collected them from outskirts of New Addington and put them back on the right path. Only for them to stray again an hour later. So they were collected again and put back on the path again. This time they made it. They walk all the way to Waylands Campsite which is to the east of Biggin Hill.
Once they arrive at camp they put up their hike tents – thank you Jack Petchey Foundation for funding them. Then they started cooking their evening meal. They soon discovered that cooking on Triangias was hard work. They still managed to produce a lovely meal of chicken stirfry with noodles and wash up. By which stage is was quite late, so they elected to skip dessert (cake) and supper (they had only just finished eating) and went to find the other group camping to enjoy a bit of their campfire.
Sunday morning started very cold with ice on all the tents. The scouts managed to take around two hours to cook some bacon and then they were off again. This time they did pretty well with navigation, but they were very much behind time. At one stage they were walking 2km per hour. So we did have to cut it short and drive them home.
At the time of writing the scouts have still to draft their reports and conclude their task on comparing the litter in a rural or urban area.
They had a great time and we are looking forward to their reports.