Swaledale Outdoor Club

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Hamsterley Forest

On a beautiful sunny, warm October day (yes it does sometimes occur in England!) a group of keen orienteerers gathered at Hamsterley Forest to try out this new branch of SOC activities. Mike Hardy, from CLOK, was there with a few others to help us. He first of all explained what Orienteering is all about. I'm not sure some people really knew what they were setting themselves up to do! "Run, no I don't want to run!" I heard a few times. But boy did those people run when they were being timed with penalty points for being late. The competitive spirit took over!

Anyway we then set off to look around in groups and practise using the map for finding square markers on trees and getting to know the forest terrain. After a short walk we then held our own Score competition. We were given 45 minutes to collect as many points as possible with the markers holding either 5, 10 or 15 points depending how difficult they were to find or the distance you had to run to get to them. The worst bit about the day was the fact that my team lost 20 points for being just 2 minutes late. A bit steep I thought, but that's the rules! My excuse was that I had 2 kids with me, who despite being excellent map readers and great sports, kept falling over, so we had to check they were OK each time! Or was it just that I'm so used to running late that I can't avoid it!

From what I heard and gathered those people attending thoroughly enjoyed the event and were asking for dates of future events.

Liz Copsey

Last Modified: 7 May, 2003