Festival of Orienteering

Relaxing after a long day of orienteering in the sun

Lots of the juniors from our club took part in the orienteering festival in Newcastle and Tollymore over the weekend 20 - 22 Jun. The weather, for once, was glorious with temperatures in the early 20OC making it the ideal weekend for camping.

Scene from the camp site

The Sprint Map

The weekend started with a sprint race around Newcastle on the Friday evening with juniors having to negotiated parkland and urban control sites. This was tricky going and required careful attention to the control descriptions.

Start of the Sprint

Saturday saw the main LongO race in Donard Forest in some testing conditions. The heat made it hard work and the terrain was tough with lots of climb and also plenty of thick undergrowth reducing visibility and fallen trees making it hard to run in places.

Part of the Donard Map - Tricky Forest 

Saturday afternoon saw a quick relocation to Tollymore and the juniors take part in a contour only training session. The aim of the game was to locate the control sites using a map with only the contours visible. This was a difficult challenge but a great exercise for reading the shape of the ground and paying attention to contour detail.

Contours only map

Hands up if you thought the training was ace

That evening saw lots of unofficial sports on the open field including football, cricket and hurling taking place. These only stopped, for a short time, to enjoy the BBQ dinner, complete with desserts.

Cricket in action

Sunday was the relay races in Tollymore. We had a junior only team entered while other juniors took part in family teams. It was a tricky race with lots of fine detail on the 1:4000 map with a complex maze thrown in that was overlooked by all those waiting to race - no pressure then! To top it all off an ice cream van arrived at the end of the races. Perfect timing.

Peter heads out on the sprint rely

The relay sprint start line

Andrew sets his map for the start of the relay sprint

Excellent handover between Rachel and Peter

Sophie warms up - ever the professional

Sunny Simplification

The juniors took part in a training exercise at Belfast Castle on a hot sunny Sunday afternoon on the 15 Jun. The name of the game was to locate the exact control point, using the map and control descriptions and to do so by simplifying the map picture as much as possible. Once at the centre of the control circle you had to be very sure as there was no kite to help.  It was hard work in the sun but good fun for all.

Seeing the Tree for the Wood

Juniors took part in training at Barnett's Park in which they had to complete a course that had the control kites placed very low and hard to find. To do so they had to really work hard at visualising the control site location so they knew they were in the right place exactly rather than hunting for the kite itself when in the rough area. They also had to write down the control description for each site and check that off at the end against the answers.