East of Scotland Orienteering Championships and ESOL 1, Mill of Fortune, Comrie, 29.09.02
to be added...
Jane Anderson
One advantage of having spent several days checking a new map is that one has a good idea of the best bits of the forest, and indeed individual controls, so it gave me a flying start when planning the courses. Perhaps the main constraint was that there is a distinct lack of line features for short courses and that, as well as minimising the distance from Auchingarrich, were the main factors in selecting the start and finish locations. Only the brown course ventured into the far eastern area of the map where there is some lovely deciduous woodland but also voracious bracken in the open areas which influenced the placing of controls and necessitated the clearance of a few elephant tracks. The whole area is lovely in the Spring!
There are some beautiful untouched parts of the wood and I hope you appreciated these, and also the fact there was hardly any use of tracks and paths apart from a short section on some of the shorter courses. Another rather unusual feature was that I managed to go to all the controls on the Saturday without getting my feet wet, despite wearing an old pair of Walshes. I hope short legs did not find the white and yellow courses too arduous - we certainly removed large amounts of brashings to ease progress, as well as nettles and ferns.
It was pleasing to hear so many favourable comments on the area - even from some of the Green competitors who followed the wall from 4 to 5 - which you shouldn't really have done!
Dave Prentice
It's not often that a brand new area of quality appears on the Orienteering scene in the South of Scotland, and I expect most of you who ran at Mill of Fortune on Sunday will be looking forward to a return trip, perhaps when the bracken growth is not quite so luxuriant. On your behalf, can I thank Tay for finding a competition area with so much to offer, and with the excellent facilities of Auchengarrich as a base.
Dave Prentice provided you with well graded courses, although there was a shortage of suitable line features for White and Yellow, resulting in a fair bit of taping. Winning times on all courses seemed about right, and the 'tail' was about normal. Everyone remembered to download their SI cards, which was bit of a worry to me as the finish was so far from the download point - well done. Some thought perhaps needs to be given to the safety aspect of a "paperless" event where it is possible to miss out the download, as without the usual reconciliation of stubs and control cards, it could be difficult to judge whether missing names are in fact still out.
Everything seemed to run smoothly, including the weather, so thanks also to Jane the organiser and her Tay club helpers.
Robin Sloan, Roxburgh Reivers
Back to Mill of Fortune Results