From Your Editor

I`m Back—are you? So much has been going on, that I wonder if I`ve been away.

Oodles of articles left over from July edition, which the writers gave permission to withhold. Then I had family members over from Durban South Africa and took them all over the North East. There was the Tall Boats visiting the Tyne . I saw at least one leader of the Great North District as she left Newcastle Airport for Canada . There was the Sunderland airshow. And apart from that glorious stretch of weather, when I managed to get dehydrated, summer hasn`t been to good, has it? And to crown everything, we got really hammered by the Aussies in the first test.( although as I write this, we are not doing so bad on the first day of the 2 nd Test).

And what about all you folk out there. Where have you been for camps, sleepovers, visits etc. If only one report comes in from every section , we would have to have 12 pages of Look Wide. Do you know that if it wasn’t for a report by your D.C. we still would not know that we had a Queen Scout in the District. I am proud of that fact!!! Surely someone in the group must also be proud of that achievement. So out with your notebooks and pens and let me know of these things. Look wide has a wide circulation. We also have at least two web sites in the district, which will give us greater publicity. They will be absolutely useless without your input. Please get cracking.

Note from Stephen Barnes.

Any Leader who would be interested in taken their section climbing can now contact Tony Read on 0191 2423663. Tony has been an Assistant Explorer Scout Leader with the Griffin Explorer Scout unit and is now hoping to use his skills in helping all members of the district.

Notes from Richard Brown ACC Scouts

County Scouts Badge Weekend.

Details are now available for the badge weekend being held October 14 th to 16 th at Hawkhirst, Kielder Water. Two badges for the weekend will be the Orienteering badge and the Camp Cooks Badge.

Details and information can be found on the booking form which can be downloaded from the County Downloads page, or from the County Office .

Quizco (11 th November)

Details for the Quizco event will follow when I return from Eurojam

Caud Marra 2006

Planning is now underway. Flyer came out with County News , now available on my downloads page.

This is an expedition log of young people enjoying themselves?*$?. Written by their Senior Patrol Leader,- what a wonderful thing it would be if we one like this each month .Come on—who is going to be next;- now read on-- Ed

As part of our Expedition Challenge, I and four other scouts from Oaklands Sea Scouts recently went on an expedition to Hadrian’s Wall . After many months of planning and a training walk (round the town moor) we were ready. On Saturday 11th of June we met up at Regent Centre in the morning (a bit early for some of us) and got the metro to Central Station. After a bit of confusion we eventually found our way out to the AD122 ( Hadrian’s Wall Bus). We travelled on that to Chesters Roman Fort after befriending the bus driver and the old women sitting in front of us.

Before we left I had arranged with Brian (our Scout Leader) that I would text him the number of every milestone we passed. These are the texts he got on Saturday:

28, 29, blister stop, 30, 31, 31, cant find brocolita, we’re lost, found brocolita all happy now eating, 32 , 33, 34, 35, not going to get there by 5, found housteads but still no once brewed,36, 37, 38, we can see YH we’ll be there soon can someone bring Lewis a drink bottle 4 2morrow. 39, YOUTH HOSTEL!!

As you might have gathered we stopped for the night at Once Brewed Youth Hostel, not before we had climbed loads of hills got lost at least twice and passed Robin Hoods’ Tree. We had great fun staying there, we watched Dr. Who, played pool, and met some “Norwegian Lasses” who were very popular with the boys.

The Next day it was chucking it down with rain and we had the more dangerous bit of the walk with big hills and rocky cliffs, we did however like the drizzle much better than the blistering heat of Saturday. The texts Brian received this time were:

40, 42, 43, 43, stopped for a break, 43, 43, 44, stopped for lunch, 45….

 I’ll stop here because we had a bit of an accident. Those of you who have walked this path will know these hills are so steep that it takes longer to get down than go up. We all devised our own method, mine was sitting down and sliding, I ended up in a nettle bush. Peter’s method was running which seemed to work OK until we got to a particularly steep hill with rocks sticking out of it. Peter was running and he was going so fast he couldn’t stop; he tripped over a rock, flew through the air, whacked his head off a rock and landed on his shoulder. It was a very comical sight until we realised he had hurt himself, so we all tried to get to him as fast as we could (without running). Then we phoned Brian who did an examination of Peter by phone and decided that he would meet us later on the path to check on him. We all helped Peter up, I carried his bag for him and we struggled on.

… 46, 47, we r at the car park…

By this time Peter had pretty much recovered but we were all absolutely soaking. After Brian had given Peter the OK it took a lot of will power to carry on.

…48, 49, passed the railway nearly there! 50, 51

We were then picked up and we had finished!!!!!!!!!!!

Laura Smith SPL