Bowhill 8/2/20

The results from this morning’s event at Bowhill are HERE

Routegadget (where you can add your own route) is HERE

When I got word during the week of the approaching storm I did start to wonder what else might happen. Away back whenever, I agreed to plan an event at Elibank but couldn’t do it on the proposed date. I started planning in the hope that the date could be changed. When it couldn’t, I had to begin again. Initially I had thought to try and take the courses to parts of Bowhill that hadn’t been used for some time. After 2 visits, I gave up on this as it would have needed too many map corrections. As I was running out of time, I planned courses using sites that had been used in the past and parts of the forest that I had visited. There were, however, a couple of parts that I hadn’t checked, and I apologise if these caused any problems.

It is also getting quite tricky to plan a Light Green course which doesn’t present W12, Ellie with too much of a challenge while still giving the “more experienced” orienteers some level of challenge. From the results, it looks like Ellie was doing fine up to control 9 when she realised she needed to get back, to accompany her friend Ava round the yellow course. Some of the more experienced orienteers seem to have found controls 9 & 10 quite challenging!

Well done to everyone on the Orange and Yellow courses. Everyone managed to come first on at least one leg of their course. I apologise again for leg 7 – 8 on the Orange course. It looks relatively straightforward on the map, but I didn’t check it!

A very big thank you to Bowhill House and Grounds and especially to Michael Paton, their Learning and Engagement Ranger. He brought the weather warning to my attention and was very supportive when I suggested moving the event to an earlier start time. I’m listening to the wind and rain battering my house now and am glad that we got everyone safely away before the weather deteriorated. A second big thank you to Lindsey whose role as “buddy” started off with reminders to put the course closing time on the maps but ended with a massive effort to put out controls on Friday afternoon and very early on Saturday morning (and then manage registration) so that we could beat the weather. Thank you to those who brought in controls: Rob, Eb, Andrew and James and to everyone who came along and took part in the event, making all the effort to organise it worthwhile.

Pauline (Planner/Organiser)