PARKHURST FOREST
Sunday 11th March 2007
What a difference a week makes.
Seven days before the event, Parkhurst was extremely wet and uninviting. The
weekend of the event, Parkhurst was still extremely wet, but now bathed in
glorious sunshine.
It is quite a challenge to set
orienteering courses in Parkhurst Forest. In many places, the woods are too
dense to use and the Forestry commission are constantly carrying out thinning
works, which invariably involves heavy machinery churning up paths, to the
extent that they become unusable.
The ever present brambles will
also soon be found by anyone straying from the comprehensive net- work of
paths.
This planner decided to
compensate for the lack of good orienteering terrain by tucking awayı many of
the control points to make them less obvious.
It was pleasing to see very few
retirements, although the number of competitorıs times exceeding two hours,
suggested the planner was a bit optimistic with the severity of the courses.
Apologies to those three green
course runners who failed to find the final control. It seems likely that this
was in the wrong pit. I have decided to assume that all competitors did indeed
find this problem control. It is the nature of the event that one siting error
can substantially affect even an experienced competitor.
We were pleased to see John Hamon
from the County Press, who came along with Charlie and Abbie to see what
orienteering was all about.
The planner is grateful to Anne
Ralph, Glyn Williams, Iris Fay, Pete Bartlett and Chris Stokes for their help.
Also many thanks to Chris Lipscombe for her untiring organisational work at
both registration and dealing with all the numerous behind the scenesı
activities, that are so important to allow a small club to function. Whilst we
donıt see Chris running around the woods anymore and although I am not allowed
to divulge her age, she surely must be the senior citizen of orienteering in
the country!