Chris Curtis Web Site

It was cold but lovely with bright sunshine. I made the journey across deepest Sussex to Eartham, north of Chichester. I was determined to do better this week after last week’s struggle with control 10, but I copied one control incorrectly onto the map and, for the first time ever, missed a control completely, so got no result at all.

Eartham North is mature plantation. Most of it is fairly featureless and even a little monotonous, but it does encourage what the planner did – long straight legs through the forest, largely ignoring the grid of straight, wide paths. Parts of the plantations were extremely runnable, with good space between trees and nothing underneath except leaf-litter, but quite large areas looked easily runnable, but had lots of 50cm long, single-strand, very thin bramble, that did not yet have leaves, so pulled and scratched at you as you ran. The tops of my legs were shredded despite successfully avoiding the usual undergrowth.

I started fairly slowly, but after control 2, I had the “feel” of the terrain and could visualise where I was. I was even a little faster across the ground than usual, my recent hard training seeming to pay off a little, even if not enough yet. I was able to keep running longer, though there is still a lot of improving to do, fitness-wise. I was pleased with my navigation. Routes seemed pretty obvious to me, with few choices to be made, and once I had become used to some “features” being virtually invisible (e.g. an “earth wall” which was just discernable from control 6, when I wanted to use it to lead me in) I was getting along fairly well, until control 8.

I nailed the control circle first time, but there was no control. Doubts crept in so I relocated and found a very obvious feature, “hopped” to another feature and walked in on a very careful bearing – to get back to exactly the spot I was at the first time. I did the same from the other side, with the same result. No control, but I was very definitely in the right place. Everything was exactly right. Nothing for it but to go on and finish. Either the control had gone, or I had marked it wrongly. Sadly, it was the latter. The control was on an “indistinct path” in an area of mixed “green”, exactly as I had marked it, but actually on a parallel path through very similar terrain about 600 metres to the north-west of where I was. My eye must have skipped when copying. I usually check carefully, but must have missed this one. Obviously, without the control marked on the map properly, and so far away from the right place, I had no chance.

One or two consolation thoughts:

• I was never lost, not at all. Had I gone to the right control, without the need for multiple relocations, I could have completed under the “magic” hour. This would have meant under 15 minutes per km – very much better than last week.
• I did several of these long, straight legs running throughout and there were several times I was running quite happily over worthwhile distances – the training has had an impact, albeit small so far.

I will just have to try and get a better result next time.

I went to Southwater Country Park (near Horsham) today. As I won the club handicap last year, I am supposed to plan and organise the next one, in June. I have never planned a proper orienteering course before, but with help, I am keen to do my best. Armed with a map, I went down to search out possible control points. For obvious reasons, I am not going to say where I went! It is going to be hard to fit full courses in a small area like this, and the network of paved paths will make it difficult to tempt people into what little woodland there is. Still, I think I found some interesting control sites, though I will have to go back for another visit before the courses are anything like planned.

I enjoyed being out in the open air all morning, despite cold, strong wind, heavy rain and even snow at one point. Worst of all was the mud – Southwater Park used to be a clay pit. As soon as you went off the path you were slipping and sliding around. By June, of course, it will be rock hard. Still, the cafe did a good cup of coffee and very nice bread pudding, and it was warm in there!

I was out on a cycle ride earlier today and took this distant (about 10 miles/ 16km) view of Leith Hill – the venue for day 5 of the forthcoming orienteering world cup.

I really like Worth Lodge Forest, which is just south of Crawley. The terrain is varied. It has some fine stands of old pine and spruce, but also areas of old beech, lots of hazel coppice and although it has an awful lot of bracken, the brambles are not too big an issue. The area also has some great hydrology, with interesting streams, plenty of marsh to try to avoid and some real gulleys and earth banks.

The weather was fantastic. Glorious sunshine and much more like summer than spring. New leaves were showing on some of the smaller trees and the woods were full of birdsong. I had been looking forward to this.

I set off confidently enough and found the first control without problems. Things started to go wrong after that! On the way to the first control, I had worked out the optimum route to two, but was distracted trying to catch up to the person who had gone just before me, who I could see not far ahead, and forgot to follow my route, going back to follow the path. This did not lose me much time, but made me feel like an idiot. To add to my lack of confidence, there had been a great deal of tree trimming and felling since we were last there. Large areas were littered with small tree stumps and there were mounds of “brashings” along the edge of paths and ditches, making it risky to cut corners or run straight in places.

When you see four controls in an area about 200m x 200m you know it is going to be “technical” – you are going to have to go carefully and pay attention every step of the way. Once I got the hang of it, I was O.K., though fairly slow. In fact, I was fairly slow all the way round. So were quite a number of people. All but 13 of the 49 entrants on the green course took more than an hour. Still, I knew where I was and where I wanted to go, so was not unduly concerned, especially as it was becoming very warm.

Control 10 was my nemesis. I arrived at the junction of the rides and paths, marked on the extract with a purple shape. I intended to go along the path, then down the row in the plantation to attack the control from the earth wall at point ‘A’. What I think I must have done is come through the plantation too soon, arrived at the earth wall at point ‘B’ instead. I duly crossed straight ahead, over the stream and found myself in a soggy mess. What was worse, I managed to become completely disorientated, so I was not even sure which side of the stream I was on, or which stream it was. The forest there is dark and thick, so there is no obvious quick route out to relocate. What followed was a full twenty minutes of misery until I made myself study the map very carefully, finally becoming secure in my location again by recognising the thicket surrounded by earth bank north-west of the control. You would think this was very distinctive, and it was when I saw it, but there were several features that might just have been it too! Once I knew where I was again, I had punched the control within ten seconds.

I have no excuse really, but that part of the forest is very much Sussex pretending to be Sweden. It is very dark in the tall, dense spruce plantations. The area around the stream is silver birch, quite close together so you have to weave through it. There are deep glades and knolls, carpets of moss and green-grassed marsh and lots of water, with steep banks. Not what we are used to in the south-east of England, but actually a great bit of terrain. I greatly enjoyed the sense of relief and the terrain going easily from 10 to 11 along the top of the earth bank above the stream and finding the control behind a pretty pool.

Sadly, by now I had lost the will to live, let alone compete, so I just enjoyed the woods and the good weather and plodded around the rest. I was pleased to finish, and relieved not to be last, though this is certainly one I will put in the “not my best performance” category.

After I finished, I took the camera back round part of the course. It was embarrasingly easy to amble quickly back to what had taken me ages when I was trying hard. There is a moral in there somewhere. I took lots of photos, including some of controls in situ, which I will use with the kids in school, but few capture the real feel of the terrain. One bonus was seeing a small, grey/brown lizard skeetering around the base of a big, sunlit tree. Lizards are not common hereabouts, and it was the first I have seen in some years.

There are more photos I took today at Worth Lodge Forest here

Now I have finished re-designing the site, I have made the theme available for download.

As you can see if you click on the “categories” over on the right, this theme will present a different banner for each category in the site. All you have to do is make and name one 800 x 150 pixel jpg image for each category. Feel free to use it, distribute it and adapt it for any non-commercial use.