The combined BARC South East and Borough 19 Annual Treasure Hunt, saw 12 teams compete on a very interesting route. With the start, as usual, at the Thistle Hotel just outside Brands Hatch, we were the first team away.

To the concern of the crew, Sue was keen to put some distance between us and the other competitors as she was treating it more like a race. This possibly cost us the one point, or two in the final results…   Bench ? What bench ??

However, the trip to and from Lullingstone Roman Villa meant we soon met up with most of the other runners. Once clear of the ford at Eynsford we continued along the Darenth valley then turned left along the Pilgrims Way via Kemsing. We then made our way to Trossley Country Park where we had to collect our second batch of clues.

These took us through to Meopham, where we eventually thought the finish would be. Wrong! When we answered the final question we then had to decipher a mobile phone number. This turned out to be Audrey's phone and when we spoke to her we were told to look under the drivers seat to reveal the final destination. This turned out to be the Historic Chatham Dockyard, so a quick blast down the A2 was next on the agenda. At the finish we enjoyed looking around and answering some more clues before the presentation aboard a sailing ship called Gannet.

Although we did the route in the quickest time there were no awards for that, but we did finish second overall just one point behind the very lucky (and shocked) B19 chairman, Jason Watkins. Third went to Barry and Julie Morris with Graham Richardson's team fourth. A great time was had by all and it was nice to be competing instead of organising this event.

Well done to Andy and Audrey for master minding an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable good day out.