Orienteering: Planning
I spent a couple of extremely pleasant hours this afternoon out in the Tilgate Woods (near Crawley) checking out some queries on “armchair planned” courses for a forthcoming event. The terrain is much more interesting than it looked on the map and there is a real pleasure in moving fairly slowly, seeing just how accurate the map is by spotting every feature. Carlos and I made some changes to our courses, which should make them much better.
What was a little frightening was that we managed to misplace ourselves slightly a couple of times while walking around. I think the issue was really about having two of us there – you concentrate much better on navigation when you are on your own and have to take full responsibility.
One worry about the area was the undergrowth – brambles and such. It is thick enough in several “open woodland” areas to consider changing the map – and would certainly change route choices if we did so. We will take some advice before deciding what to do.