Hethfelton Night Event – Saturday 15 December 2007.
Lovely little area and a great, if somewhat cool, little event. We had 16 competitors, which might seem a small number, but is 50% up on the usual Wessex Night League numbers to this esoteric aspect of our sport. It was good to see a number of night ‘virgins’ as well.
Organising an event, no matter how small, can be stressful, but this particular one I thought was going to be a doddle. This was mainly because the event was due to be held in February 2007 and had to be postponed due to travellers being ensconced in the woods. Therefore everything was ready to go; the controls had been tagged (albeit 9 months ago), the score course decided, the equipment bought, the maps overprinted and produced on the waterproof paper we now use, what could possibly go wrong?
Ian Sayer had been kind enough to bring the ‘informal’ kit over on the Wednesday before the event, including all the electronic bits. Thursday evening I took out my Hethfelton folder and everything was there ready to go………..apart from the maps. I was convinced they had been produced (even Valerie said she remembered seeing them). Now I moved house a couple of months after the original date and have a large storage unit at Lok-n-store. This was the only place it could be, but which of the 55 boxes was it in? I checked with Bill and he confirmed that the maps had indeed been produced, so Friday afternoon was spent going through all the boxes. In the meantime Bill had put an emergency call through to Nigel Benham to get some more printed just in case. Sods law being what it is, the maps finally came to light in the last box in the furthest corner. The upside being I found Valerie’s ipod!!!
Saturday afternoon and Liz Locton kindly joined me to help put out the 22 controls. Everything was set up and the competitors duly arrived, some coming from afar afield as Bridgwater, Devises, Salisbury and Southampton. From a planning perspective it was good to see competitors going off in four different directions and there was even some spectator value in watching some crisscross the start area. Everyone returned safely, which is always an anxious time at a small event like this in winter.
Now it was time to collect in the controls. Rob Hick had sympathetically stayed behind to help, Liz having had to depart for France. Now those of you who have ever been involved with collecting in controls, particularly if you have a modicum of experience, know that its done in a somewhat laissez-fair way, you don’t need a compass for starters do you? Anyway, Rob drove off the get the Northern controls and I drove off for the Southern controls, with the arrangement that the first one back to the start collects the control on the tumulus above the start area. Now things don’t quite look the same in the dark, and they look particularly different when navigating from a car. I couldn’t find a path junction and had to drive up and down a few times before getting out and locating it. Then control 5, I attacked three times and still couldn’t find it. I couldn’t be arsed to get my compass out from the bottom of my bag which was hidden under equipment in the back of the car. I decided that I was wasting too much time and Rob would probably be wondering where I was, so went on to collect the next few. Control 13 was a couple of rights at road junctions, up to the top of the area, along a bit then out of the car and into the woods. So far so good. But could I find the control. I knew I was the right distance into the woods, traversed back and forward, came to a forest road, knew where I was, traversed back and still couldn’t find it. Something was nagging at the back of my mind that this didn’t quite look like the area I remembered tagging some 9 months previous (Liz had put out this control), I traversed further and came to an angled path which I recognised. Even in the pitch dark a light went on – I checked the map and in driving had taken a right turn too soon and was looking in completely the wrong block of wood!!!!!!!!!!!!
I collected the rest without a problem but thought that Rob would be back, getting cold and cursing me to high Heaven. I got to the start area and no Rob. I thought he must have gone home after all this time. Best thing is to check the control on the tumulus, if its gone then so has Rob. It was there, so Rob hadn’t got back yet! – hope he’s ok I thought. Anyway, left a note for him to say that I was going back to find control 5 and could he meet me there. Drove back to the attack point for control 5 and just as I was about to delve off into the stygian darkness, saw Robs headlights coming in this direction. When he arrived he was perfuse in his apologies for being late. When I explained my own travails he just about kept from convulsive laughter, but it was a close run thing. He then explained his own adventure: looking for control 2 he had left the sidelights on his car to make it easier to come straight back to, then dived off into the forest, found control 2 and made his way back to the forest road where he had parked his car. He got to the road, no car, he went up and down the track but it didn’t look quite right. He then realised he had made a 90 degree error coming out of the control and was looking for his car on the wrong track!!!
Rob took me straight to control 5 – thanks a bunch Rob! We ended the evening in the pub, with broad grins, thinking about the antics of two supposedly experienced orienteers!
If you haven’t tried night orienteering before, you ought to give it a try. Whatever hash you make of it, it cant be any worse than what the organisers might do!
Rob and I have promised each other not to let anyone know about this, so keep it too yourself.
Gavin
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