Glenbranter, 17th Feb 07
Glenbranter will be the site of the first permanent course for EckO. The club have worked closely with the Forestry Commission on this project (they supply and instal the posts, we do the planning!). We had hoped that the posts would be in place for this event, but other forestry work had to be done first.
Carol Burnapp has competed at many local events and I felt that it was time to see if she would like to find out about the planning & organising side of orienteering. Carol planned the yellow & orange courses, using the locations of some of the permanent course posts. She also helped a lot on the day, putting out controls, at registration and with general tidying up after the event – many thanks Carol, I hope that you enjoyed it and would like another go soon!
I planned the green course and the two night courses (ochre – dark yellow and olive – dark green). The day course again used positions of the permanent course posts and so was not too navigationally challenging.
The sun shone for most of the time and 14 adults, two families and two juniors sampled the day courses. Well done to the two adults who competed on the orange course and then tackled the steep climbs on the green course! It was also good to welcome Gwen McCrossan – Gwen first began orienteering a few years ago when a pupil at Dunoon Grammar School and she has now returned to the area with her family.
There was quite a wait for it to be dark enough for the competitors on the night event courses! Eventually 10 adults and two juniors went out to find out what the area was like in the dark – all returned safely but had found it quite a different experience.
The Forestry Commission made us very welcome and the competitors enjoyed the tea, coffee and biscuits provided by Liz Connelly – thank you.
There will be an official opening of the permanent course at Glenbranter in the late spring. An announcement of the date will be on the website.
Have you put your route up on RouteGadget yet? It would be great to see who went where. If you were unable to come to the event, have a look at the courses. Thanks to Paul Frost for making this available.
Lynne Walker
