Kent County Hike 2005

A team of Scouts from 8th Sheppey entered the county hike this year.

They found the hike was not as easy as they thought, due to all the equipment they had to carry.

They joined about 350 other scouts and explorers for a weekend on exhausting hiking and then on the Sunday lots of fun.

We started the hike at 9:15am at a place code named Torquay,

The challenge there was to work in pairs to get a semaphore message from one end of a field to the other then solve the clue in the message. after this we started the hike properly and set out through back roads and bridleways across the Thanet countryside.

The next challenge was the old towers of Hanoi puzzle where you had 6 different size discs in a pyramid and you had to move them from one peg to another, one at a time and you could not put a larger one on top of a smaller one, sounds simple but ask the team (it was not easy).

We then set out across open farmland on tracks and bridleways to the next task, this one was more fun.

The task was a fire scenario where three members of the team were blind folded( to simulate being in a smoke filled area), one of them was in a supermarket trolley with a washing up liquid bottle, the forth member of the team was not blind folded (to simulate being in a command post to give directions to the rest of the team) and attached to the trolley by a piece of rope about 8 foot long, they had to give the two blind folded members out of the trolley instructions to guide it down a route, but at the same time so as not to let the sighted person get to close the rope was not allowed to touch the floor.
when at the far end of the course the sighted person had to instruct the team member in the trolley on where and how to aim the water from the washing up liquid bottle to get as much as possible in a pint kitchen jug, they need to get a set amount for the fire to be put out, then the sighted person had to guide the team back to base and the task finished

After that we hiked on to Manston airport and the next challenge was archery, this was made more difficult due to a high wind, there was 12 arrows per team, which were divided equally,

After this we hiked on to the final challenge but on arrival we were told we had run out of time, (only we had not been told there was a time limit for the hike).

When we got back to base camp tea was served a short while later and there were comments from some team members that they did not like the food or not what they normally eat but they were so hungry the ate it, there was a disco put on in one of the big marquees but most scouts and explorers seemed happy to sit and listen to the music from the tent area (could be something to do with not wanting to dance on sore feet!!)

Sunday brought about the fun day aspect of the event.

there was :-

• giant games

• water rockets

• car / van pull (added points to score)

• get knotted challenge (added points to score)

• climbing tower

• graffiti wall

• Kim's game (added points to score)

• speed stackers

• touch , taste , smell

• various football games

• air rifle shooting

The scouts had a lot of fun on these

We did not get a place as a leader went on the hike to assist with navigation, but if they had done it on their own they would have come a respectable 18th out of about 45 scout teams, if we had completed the hike and all the challenges we would have been in the top 10 and possibly top 3, so well done the team

			Some of the Thanet countryside we hike through on the county hike
			The archery Challenge, this was made a lot more difficult by high wind

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Last modified: 20/01/06