breadalbane 1997

8/9/2019 Breadalbane 1997

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Breadalbane 97

A Report on the Scottish Six Day Orienteering Festival

by James Head

There being no organized minibus trip up to this years holiday event I took

the precaution of hiring a car for the week and camping at the event camp site. A feweyebrows were raised when I started meeting other Devon members whilst driving a

rather swish looking P registration Rover 214SI. I started off from Exeter on Friday

morning and reached Aberfeldy at ten oclock at night, just in time to have a couple of

beers in the pub, well youve got to get your priorities right. During my journey I

found that the traffic feature on the RDS radio was next to useless, I had already been

in the traffic jams for ten minutes before the announcer came on to tell me why I was

being held up! On the Saturday I bought a map of the training area, The Heart of

Scotland and went for a gentle stroll around one of the courses. You don't want to

get too tired before the start of a six day event. Later on I discovered that my pitch

was in the noisy end of the camp site, between Oxford University and a group ofteenagers that never seemed to run out of beer money!

Day 1 Drummond Hill

Drummond Hill was originally replanted by Black Duncan of Aberfeldy, an

educated man who devised an ingenious method for completing this task. Black

Duncan instructed his serfs to fill several cotton bags with pine cones which were then

fired off onto the hill by cannon. This might have gone some way to explaining the

fight most competitors had to struggle through for their last legs, including Brian

Parker who unfortunately encountered a low flying branch which resulted in a rather

sore eye for the next couple of days.

We were unable to run through the southeast of the map because of the

Capercallie so those of us setting off from the red start had a couple of short legs to

guide us westwards. It seemed that the planners had not counted on a large number of

us choosing a route which led us directly across the blue start. The officials were

quite concerned as they thought most of us where jumping the start! The southern

part of the hill slopes down to meet Loch Tay but we were more concerned with

keeping the height advantage as we contoured around through the white mapped

wood. Due forestry work and a good growing season there were a lot of brashings and

heather on the ground which slowed down progress. Meanwhile the planners haddone a very good job of routing the courses so that we werent able to use the long

wall that ran along the top of the hill. At the finish I was surprised to meet an old

school friend and Kirton hasher, Paul McGreal, who - now working in Edinburgh - is

a member of ESOC.

Day 2 Rannoch Forest

Starting at the very scenic (and presumably very expensive) Rannoch School

we were soon into the thick of the forest. There were a lot of mumblings at the

technique clinic in the evening regarding the way the vegetation had been mapped.

Many thought that the difference in green seemed to match the change in vegetationand not the runabilty of the area, and once they had got used to this seemed to get on


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better. The advice given by the coach, Hilary Palmer, was to never rely on the

vegetation alone but to use other features to reinforce your navigation. I had started

off okay but ran into difficulties at number five where I took a bearing off a turning

circle in the forest road to reach a ditch 150m away. My first attempt was quite far off

and so I went back to try again. My second attempt was equally unsuccessful but this

time at least I knew where I had run to and so could run north eastwards to meet theditch. At least Hilary thought that I had picked the best attack point so I only need to

improve my compass and pacing work! The rest of the course went well, and at least I

got to see a Deer cross my path, is this lucky? The grounds of Rannoch School

provided a good opportunity to give a demonstration of Trail O which was quite

popular.

Day 3 Leachdann Tom na Croich

The longer courses had a very long and steep climb up to the start although the

views from the top were very good. Runabilty was difficult in places but there wereopportunities to get your feet wet in some of the marshes. Starting off in the forest the

first legs involved more climb before eventually running along the top to come out

onto the moorland. Several people found the change quite difficult, and the dry

weather had baked the soil so there were many ankles getting twisted. At one point I

was able to use a drinks station, and the people running into it, to guide me to one of

my controls which I was pleased to get spot on. All that practice at Penhale in April

made visualizing the contours much easier. The run in to the finish was a very steep

downhill, and very visible so many people took this steadily, rather than get

embarrassed at falling over on the run in. After the run I went to see the Queens

View over Loch Tummel which although often visited by Queen Victoria was

probably named after Queen Isabela, wife of Robert the Bruce.

Rest Day

It seemed that none of the Goulds wished to go along with Noels suggestion

of climbing a mountain so the two of us got together to tackle one of the Munros in

the area, a long ridge named Schiehallion, whilst other members of the club climbed

the slightly higher Ben Lawers. We were lucky with the good weather although the

top was quite misty and pleasantly cool. Going down we decided not to follow the

same route down but go around down the other side. This proved to me more difficult

then it looked due to the high heather and bracken which meant that we took longercoming down then going up.

Day 4 Creag Vinean

A few of the club had visited this area before as part of a previous JK and so

had a better idea than the rest of us of what to expect. We all started from the same

place and followed roughly the same route around the forest. I was informed later that

this was because of the large scale of forestry activity in the area which meant other

parts of the map were now out of date. After a long first leg I had a crag in the middle

of the fight with a map correction nearby. Several people had trouble with this control

and there was at least one official complaint as some thought that it was a bingocontrol, however although I did not get this spot on the first time I thought that there


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was enough information on the map to make the control fair. Coming in on a

compass bearing I must have been a few metres too east and I soon came across a crag

without a control. Looking to the left I saw another crag to the west and quickly

realized I had gone too far. I quickly found it by taking a fresh bearing. I was

disappointed at legs 3, 4 to 5 as I thought that because these three controls were in a

straight line they were too easy. It was not that difficult to follow line features inbetween and so it would have been better to plan the course leaving out control 4. I

was later to discover at the technique clinic hosted by Anne Donnel that this is exactly

what the M50L course did. It seemed that most courses had to negotiate the large

crags on the way back. Several daring people attempted to climb down crags which

were marked as impassable. It was at this point that my shoes broke, in a big way.

There was not much point now in being careful so I went for it. The last few controls

had been placed in a small but detailed area where everyone seemed to be running

towards every control they could see which must have looked very entertaining to the

officials.

Day 5 Dunalastair

Having later start times we arrived to find rumors going around of controls in

head high bracken and of normally fast people taking over two hours. From the start

the first controls were indeed located in a large sea of bracken through which it was

difficult to see and navigate. The abundance of elephant tracks leading off

everywhere proved to be of no help and there where many desperate cries for help. I

later heard tales of one group of enterprising W50s who got together and performed a

sweep search for their control! After a disappointing start, and several large errors I

began to concentrate, but admittedly this was now during the easier second half of the

course. Many people found the area very physically challenging, and there were atleast three people who needed hospital treatment. A couple of these needed

evacuation by helicopter which had spent several minutes going around in circles

above my head. Dave Livesy dropped thirty seconds on his course when he had to run

around a stretcher case near his control and jokingly put in an appeal. This was not a

day to have had an early start time and the technique clinic in the evening was

particularly busy.

Day 6 Birnam Hill

Students of Shakespeare may recognise the name from the Scottish Play forMacbeth is given a warning from the three witches, Fear not, till Birnam Wood do

come to Dunsinane. The army of Macduff and Prince Malcolm used branches cut

from the wood to camouflage themselves as they marched on Macbeths fortress at

Dunsinane. The results of the previous days competition, to devise a suitable drink

for orienteers, were produced. Andrew Allaway had a large smile on his face at the

start for he had won a bottle of Aberfeldy Whiskey for his concoction, named the

controller, described below. I hope that we can look forward to seeing some of these

ice-cubes at the Boxing Day event this year? There was a little jollity resulting from

Carol Simpsons discovery that until yesterday she had been unsuspectingly using a

compass balanced for Latvia which proved next to useless in our latitude. Birnam

Hill proved to be physical and surprisingly difficult. I expected to have a better run on


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the last day due to any improvements in technique over the week but I made some

silly mistakes in navigation on the top of the hill.

The Controller, from Andrew and Sue Allaway

First make the ice cubes in two stages, freezing the tray at an angle to produce Okites, with first grenadine (red) then coconut milk (white). Fill a large glass with O

kites and add two measures of Aberfeldy Whiskey and Highland Spring Water.

Decorate with a sprig of pine.

breadalbane 1997

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