District Hike or Not District Hike that is the question Blog

District Hike 2024 has been a different and difficult one for those involved with the planning and execution of the event. Unfortunately I had to cancel the event due to lack of teams signing up to take part, we only had 1 Scout team from 5th and 1 Explorer team from Kipling with entries submitted. Both teams was given the option if they still wanted to walk, and only the Scout team was willing, so thanks to Andy Treadwell and his scouts a walk was planned and executed, here is what happened……..

I joined Andy and James Treadwell and the 3 Scouts from 5th at Buckmore Scout Campsite where we were met by 2 Scouts from C&V, once we gave them the brief of the what was going to happen for the day and they had plotted the checkpoints on the map we headed out into the countryside for a loop walk that would take us along the North Downs way to Boxley and to Boxley church for lunch in the sun, once it was consumed we then start or walk back to Buckmore where we headed towards Burham before we started the climb upto to Buckmore, we were very blessed with the weather on the walk with nice warm sunshine where we was able to walk in t-shirts.

Once we got back to Buckmore it was time to get our tents pitched and get the one pot/pan dinners on and eaten.

Sunday morning soon arrived and all the walkers were up and getting ready for todays walk from Buckmore to Ranscomb, today we was joined by John Richards for the big walk……. As usual Buckmore woods proved to be full of tracks that caused confusion for the scouts in the navigation and map reading but everything was fine in the end, we saw lots of trains heading up and down HS1 and when we reached the M2 bridge it was very and noisy and we could just about hear each other, but got over that with lots of shouty talking.

Congratulations goes out to the Scouts from 5th and C&V that went out for the walk this year, yet again it has been a great weekends walking in the Kent countryside.

I would like to personally thank Andy, James and John that helped to ensure the event/walk was able to go ahead for the Scouts from 5th and C&V.

If you would like to know anymore information about our walk, please contact me.

Darren Stanford

Scout Leader - 4th Gravesend

10 - 24 Events Lead