My first night event
It was a good job that I had already agreed to enter the Tinto Twin before I read Niall’s article. The Tinto Twin is a night event followed by a day event. I had managed to avoid night events so far in my 4 year orienteering career, but was told, “it is time you did one” by the person that entered me (Lynne).
Whilst getting ready on the night I was feeling nervous. The walk up to the start was cold and windy (that didn’t help) but I started to feel ready for it!
I picked up my map and walked off into the darkness away from the start lights. Keep it simple, play safe, keep in touch with the map and all the other advice I had been given kept going round in my head. 8mins 56secs later I had punched control 1. I was now in the middle of light green (slow run) 120mtrs from a path. I went off bearing a bit and hit the path, but where on the path? I decided to run back down the path towards the start to check my position. It was 300 mtrs to a junction that I could fix my position from and then off to control 2.
I got to 2 without any trauma and was starting to enjoy myself. It was generally going well up to 8. The plan was to go down a ride between sections of light & dark green and then pick up another ride along the edge of the dark green. Unable to find the ride, I had two attempts to crawl on my hands & knees through dense forest and eventually came out in a large open area, but not sure where! The control was a piece of 2x2 planted earlier in an area of rough open. My head torch is not that powerful and it took me a while to spot the post. (The controller was later heard to say "an experienced orienteer should have the commitment to crawl 50 mtrs through dense trees".)
The rest went OK and I finished in 116mins (4.7k & 80mtrs climb). I was not last and most importantly, I enjoyed myself, “When is the next night event!”
Paul Frost
