Well, first of all the expedition went smoothly. Too smoothly. I can say that now as there is nothing left to jinx. The only eventful thing that happened was Rob trying to break his toe and me trying to break my knees.

Anyway, we all met at Fareham train station at half past eight on Saturday. The weather was sunny but very cold. We went inside and bought the train tickets to Winchester. We waited for 20 minutes and the train came. We had to change at Southampton but the connecting train only took 10 minutes to arrive. When we arrived at Winchester, we started the hike and came across one of many hills in the day. After hiking down a footpath through a few housing estates we reached the country roads. It was pretty uneventful and we stopped for lunch in a wooded area. After lunch, we were mucking about and I started to chase Rob. He tripped over a tree stump and fell over whilst stubbing his toe. Of course, it was my fault (in a joking way) that he wasn’t looking where he was going because I was chasing him. After much persuasion, he came to the idea that it was an accident and wasn’t my fault. We carried on down to the campsite with Rob hobbling along. When we reached the footpath we were meant to take, we were very near to the campsite. We came to a steep hill and whilst descending it, I stood on a rock hidden by leaves and fell over on my knees which also landed on rocks. It was very funny although I couldn’t quite work out whether I was crying in pain or laughter. When we got to the campsite, the gate was locked with a coded padlock. As instructed, we phoned the warden but there was no reply. We tried several times but each time there was no reply. As there was no one else at the campsite, we decided to climb over and set up camp. We put up the tent and got some wood to start a fire. It took a while to light but once it got going we shoved some palettes on it to keep it going. Dave popped down to the campsite to bring us some water and a sledge hammer - the water because the water system at the campsite was a bit dodgy and a sledge hammer to break up the palettes. We enjoyed a supper of hot dogs, noodles and chocolate mini rolls. We sat around the fire and eventually went to bed.

After a freezing cold night, we plucked up the courage to get out of our warm sleeping bags. The bacon was cooked, we ate bacon sandwiches and tried to make toast; and failed miserably. We packed up and started day two of the hike. Many hills and kilometers passed and we eventually arrived in Winchester. We broke for lunch and pushed on for the last part of the hike. When we got to train station, we got the tickets and luckily there was a train in the station to Southampton so we got on. We had to change at Southampton again but unfortunately the connecting train wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another 40 minutes. The time passed and we got back to Fareham at about 4pm. We walked back to the scout hut and hung up the tent.

Thank you very much to Joe, Rob and Spud for a great weekend - I hope you enjoyed it too.

(Mitch can’t get in to post at the mo, so I had to post this for him - Dave)
My Expedition

Over the Easter weekend, the 15th and 16th April, Rob; Jake; Tom and I went on a rather long stroll along the South Downs. On Saturday we all assembled at the Scout Hut at 9:30, we shared all of the kit out and made sure we had everything. Then Dave drove us up to Hollandsfield, a car park near Chichester. This is where we started walking. It was ok for about an hour, and then we meet a hill, that is when Jake started complaining. We carried on walking stopping occasionally to have a break and to see if Dave had found a new motor bike. When we got to Chilsgrove, we stopped and had lunch. Then we started walking again after about fifteen minutes we meet a hill about as steep as Dave’s stomach. After that, nothing exciting happened until it started raining and we met Beacon Hill. It was just fortunate we were walking down it, not up it. Then we arrived at South Harting, we were going to be staying at the Scout Hut.

When we arrived, it was still raining, so we quickly put the tent up so we could put all of our kit in. then we got Mr. Coventry to open up the hut as that was there the water and toilets were, he also was kind to let us use the kitchen. Therefore, we cooked tea and washed up, by that time it had stopped raining, so we went to go and build a fire, the scouts had already kindly cut wood for us to use, but sadly, it was all wet, so we never got a fire going. Therefore, after about an hour of doing that, we went to go and play in the park just outside. That was when Tom decided to tell me that he had phoned his mum, and arranged for him to be picked up. This was because his feet were hurting, however, he did have rather big blisters on both of his feet, a valuable lesson make sure your boots are big enough before going out walking. Before that we had spent time organising a way that he could be back in time for his football match. However, that had all gone to pot as he had gone home already. That night must have been the record for scouts going to sleep at night as by 9:15 we were asleep. In all that day had gone to plan, we left when we wanted to, arrived when we wanted to. Just a shame that Tom had to go home.

On Sunday, us who were left got up at 7:30. We had a very relaxed morning. We started by having breakfast. Then we cleaned up the hut, making sure it was how we left it. Then we packed all of our stuff up and made our lunch. We finally left at about 10:20. We then started walking, first off, all we met another big hill. After about an hour we were already half way, we thought that that was good as we would be back really early. Then we came across an old man walking with his wife, he then asked us where we were, we pointed at where we thought we were. He said that we were down her; nowhere near, where we wanted to be. Then we had a closer look at the map, when we saw that we had gone the wrong way, and the man was right. Then we started walking down a path, then we met a gate, Jake and I knew where we thought we were, but it was down to Rob’s superior map reading skills that told us that we were not. He was the one who then found us a route to get us back on route, we then met a cyclist, who then told us we were in a very different place. Then we met a woman on a horse who then directed us in another different direction. Then we were at the point where we met the man.

Fortunate for us we saw the warden who did tell us exactly where to go, and he even showed us a shortcut. At the end of the track Rob said we needed to go down this path, Jake and I disagreed, we said, as it is a National; Trail would it not be a gravelled path like this other one, Rob agreed. Then we met the woman on the horse, she said that it was the path that Rob originally said it was. After that there were no problems, it was just when we met another BIG hill, this is where Jake and I died. Just luckily, we were only 15 minutes away from Briton.

Distances:

Day 1
Originally: 13km
We Walked: 13km

Day 2
Originally: 8km
We Walked: 11.5km

In total 24.5km