MOTTISTONE DOWN
Sunday 8th June 2008
A lovely warm, even hot sunny day more suited to the beach than orienteering on overgrown hill sides. This might explain the disappointing turnout or maybe its just the time of year, but only 30 entries, with probably 40 in total. The harder courses in particularly were poorly represented.
As I could only use the open downland & Mottistone
Common I decided to try something different by giving the Green Course a Brown
only Map (contour features only, with some fences) and laying the Light Green
as a line event (see definition below).
This I thought might give competitors an opportunity to practice
orienteering skills.
After my initial reccy in February it was my aim to use much
more of the common for the Green Course (Brown only Map) while the Light Green
(line event) would have avoided most paths. However after a second visit in late May with the vegetation
especially the bracken running riot I decided to curtail the courses avoiding
the worst areas. This meant only
on the east of the common were the courses as originally envisaged & even
here the brambles & gorse encroached on the courses. The Orange & Yellow were also
shorter than usual but few seemed to mind with the hot conditions.
We did suffer from vandalism but not from people but
horses. Who seemed to object to
the controls in their field which lead the Green back from the downland. A stake was broken, a control chewed
& the culprits hid a control by lying around it from one luckless runner.
Thanks to Chris & her team at registration, Glyn &
Sue for laying/collecting the string, Brian (with grand children for planning
the string) & my wife for assisting on start/finish. Special thanks to Pete for his help on the
day & for helping me with drawing the pre-marked maps on O Cad, which I
hope you appreciated. The low
turnout will mean we have plenty left for future training sessions.
Line Orienteering. At number of control points are used on this type of course. The object is to follow the route shown on the map as closely as possible thereby finding the controls placed on the route. You do not know where on the line controls are placed so if you stray from the line you will not find the control.