I will try to answer some of the questions you've asked. These are loose answers - because there's no definite answer to anything here: it's all relative to your own take on things!

Geoscrooting
Becky has written a bit about geoscrooting over on her blog at node 144 (http://mapping-the-necklace.org.uk/node/144). I hope that helps clarify one of your queries.

Meandering
I am guessing about the meaning of this one - which is the way it should be. For me, meandering the park means exploring, taking detours as things catch my eye. But I suspect other people would have their own ideas about what it means. I hope that you would discover or create your own definition as you went.

Base Maps
Thanks for pointing this out. The maps are large, and probably not easy to download on a dial-up connection, so we should make something more user-friendly. The easiest way of doing it would be to make a grid of cells at high resolution, and go to an individual cell when you click on a 'key map'. Would that work for you?

Not Really Existing
I am tempted to say yes, and no, to your question! The Necklace Park is a collection of areas that are formally identified. But it is not a 'formal' park. Among other things, the boundaries are multilayered: they exist at some times but not at others. Mapping those boundaries would be a project in itself (NB: possibly a full-time job! Claire might have something to say about this).

The idea of boundaries is important, because the Necklace Park crosses all manner of boundaries, but also consists of discrete, sometimes very clearly-bounded spaces. It's an interesting case of boundaries that are here and not here. I suspect examples would help. Perhaps some other Team members will have better ways of clarifying it. But I'll give it a try.

The boundary of one area - such as a National Trust Woodland - might be shared with the boundaries of several other areas - such as the River Wear, a farm, a sports area, an old railway. All the areas are within the Necklace Park, but are still separate for their own purposes. Also, any one of the areas might have areas within that have seasonal boundaries, such as a fishing boundary, or high water during Springtime. They can be natural boundaries or property boundaries. So some boundaries might come and go over the course of a year. The answer to your question would then be, yes, some boundaries are totally fluid, as in the 'boundaries' of the river! (NB: no apology for the pun! It's intentional, and the park is a punster's paradise. Fact: one senior team member is an irrepressible punster, and leaves her stamp everywhere she goes. You can search for the stamp marks if you like. The search for stamps is one method of geoscrooting, as above.)

So the Necklace Park is sort of an overlay, a set of loose and not-so-loose boundaries drawn on transparencies. If you ever studied Ian McHarg and his method of urban and environmental planning, you'll recognise the analogy. You probably have better analogies from environmental science and ecology.

Pity Me
This could be a project in itself: naming the Park, telling stories about placenames, making a little narrative, setting out a journey, documenting it.

hope that helps.

The Necklace Park is very much about quality of experience and documenting that for all, which is what the Mapping the Necklace event is aiming for. In places it is a blank canvas for activities and in others it is very clearly defined. A conventional formal 'park' is generally the creation of a designer or architect’s vision. Even Capability Brown's organic designs were meticulously drafted! The Durham Necklace Park could have better parallels with the National Parks in the UK and US, where they are a place of outstanding beauty that need to be protected and promoted but that’s where the similarity ends! The Necklace Park is a celebration of experience, design, nature and space, which for years has only been enjoyed by a privileged few, who some wish would remain that way but also excited to impart that personal knowledge!