Orienteering: Planning the Handicap
What a difference a few months makes. When I first visited Southwater Country Park, near Horsham, to start planning the club handicap it was muddy, very slippery and was nondescript areas of shrub and woodland surrounding two lakes and acres of close-mown grass. The April weather was cold and it even snowed while I was there. Today, I went back for the final check-out and it was transformed. The grass is now well-grown meadow, full of orchids and geraniums and rich in other species too – high enough to be hard to see over, let alone run through. The woodlands are thick and dense – feeling far wilder than I would have believed possible. It looks a much better area than I would have believed.
Best of all was the weather. It was a perfect June evening: warm but with fresh air. The park was full of happy children (and a few disaffected youths), there were literally hundreds of rabbits on the grass and I saw a Kestrel and several woodpeckers. Lovely.