The Monthly Newsletter of Chelmsford YHA Local Group
|
WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! (again) RODINGS RALLY 2000
For the uninitiated, Rodings Rally is an event organised by the Walthamstow and Chingford YHA Local Group. It involves the solving of clues (sometimes requiring detailed knowledge of TV Soaps) to obtain grid references for the checkpoints you need to find. You then visit as many of the checkpoints as you can find within an 8 hour period. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well add to that the fact that it takes place in the dark, in Epping Forest and that the checkpoints are often fiendishly hidden inside spiky bushes and I think you'll begin to appreciate the challenge. We won the YHA group trophy ! Gareth and I managed to get all 10 checkpoints in 7hrs 6 mins - a personal best for me. We got off to a very slow start and really struggled with checkpoint 2. Gareth wanted to give up but I was determined to do it even if it meant dragging him round the course! Fortunately things picked up and we ended up doing really well. The others couldn't believe we'd walked all of it - years of fast walking to the station in the dark in winter actually does have some advantages !?!!... I really enjoyed Rodings this year despite all the mud and some rain. Managed to keep awake all of Sunday before finally keeling over in the evening. Was on a high from doing so well ! Karen None of us had the best preparation for overnight orienteering; Karen and I had moved house the weekend before and long days at work (more than 10 hours a day), Simon's wife went into hospital two days before, and Lorna finished her concert at 10pm with a start time of 11.42pm! Karen and I had a slow start (I was contemplating going back to the village hall at the end to get some sleep because I was so tired and we weren't doing very well). But we recovered after checkpoint 3 and ended up doing quite well. It was rather wet though, and where possible we'd select routes that used roads rather than tracks to avoid the mud. It rained on and off through most of the night, and it was quite heavy when Tom and Gerry were trying to solve the clues at the start. Their clue sheet disintegrated before they got checkpoint 7, but we saw them later on and gave them the clue and co-ordinates. The final positions were (as best I can remember) : Karen & Gareth 9th 10 checkpoints 7 hrs 6 mins Tom & Gerry (E) 15/16th 9 checkpoints 7 hrs 49 mins Gerry (L), Richard & Simon 24th 8 checkpoints 7 hrs 42 mins Lorna & Anna 44th 6 checkpoints ? hrs ? mins Chelmsford YHA Group 27 points, South Middlesex YHA Group 23 points Bedford YHA Group ? points Because Lorna and Anna started so late, checkpoint 1 had packed up and gone home by the time they got there, so they could very easily have finished higher. <Sound of trumpet> Karen and I were the best placed YHA team, and the only YHA team to get all 10 checkpoints. <Sound of trumpet> Gareth Anna & I started at 11.40 (the last chord of my concert was about 9.50). We now think checkpoint 1 had packed up and left, 'cos the others said it was there and we found nothing. Not a good start. No. 2 was deep in the thicks of Woodman's glade and we got there thanks to a detailed orienteering map in the Engwells' posession. On the way to 4 the mobile phone went off; we traded confirmation of grid refs (Tom said their clue-sheet was papier mache) for confirmation that we'd got the clue right, and the tent was there to be found! No. 5 was the only one where, for me, the old Rodings routine worked - pace along path, set bearing, follow bearing and count, then search area. We threw in the towel after 5, because it was after 5. Thanks to Gerry we also picked up 7 giving us a total of 6. The best news though, is that our first three teams have snatched the trophy back from South Middlesex! Lorna The Burning of Lewes .jpg)
We stayed in Telscombe hostel to see the Lewes Bonfire night celebrations. Unlike most people, content with a small bonfire and a few fire-works, the people of Lewes quite literally set the place alight. Hundreds of members of the five "Bonfire Societies" parade through the town holding burning torches, pausing to lay (pyrotechnic) wreaths at the war memorial and moving onto the four bonfire sites where they let off fireworks to rival the biggest professional displays. Once you've experienced Lewes' Guy Fawkes night, setting a few bangers off in the garden will never seem the same again. Sandwiched between foul weather, Saturday was a beautiful clear day, perfect for a walk on the South Downs, giving a vantage point to see the effects of the flooding which had occurred in the previous couple of weeks. The bonfire parades took in perfectly clear conditions, even though one of the fire sites was still under 4 feet of water. Sunday set off OK, and deteriorated although it didn't actually start to rain until we got in our cars to go home. Jim When I showed my photos of the Lewes Bonfire celebrations around at work, people asked if there had been a riot. Heaving crowds, paraffin torches, smoldering debris in the street, I could see what they meant. But although it did look like the aftermath of Brixton in the 80's, I don't remember those rioters dressing up as Cavaliers, pirates or cowboys and indians! It might have looked like chaos but in fact the parades clicked into action like well oiled machines - which I guess they should after about 300 years of practice! If you weren't there you might have trouble imagining exactly what it was like. Think of hundreds of people parading down a high street, paraffin torches held aloft Indiana Jones style and waved dangerously close to the crowds. The people are all in costume, some of them very exotic, covered in soot and ash, eyes watering and sweating in the intense heat given off by the torches. They are all ages and include both push chairs and wheelchairs. A couple of the placards have non-P.C. comments about the Pope and are the only tangible link with the origins of the parades apart from trussed up effigies of poor Guy Fawkes. The whole community appeared to be joining in and having loads of fun doing it. As the evening wore on I began to get the distinct impression that the locals were exceedingly blasé about the whole explosives thing. Men dressed up as Vicars (or at least I hope dressed up…..) casually lighting and dropping bangers in the street, barely pausing in conversation. And these aren't just your joke shop bangers, they are the things they use in bird scarers and in an enclosed space sound like they might dislodge masonry. My fears were later confirmed by Lorna's friend John (a local), who said that when the Government brought in new laws banning the handling of exhibition standard fireworks by amateurs, an exception had to be made for the Lewes societies. What I wasn't sure of was if this was because they were mad pyromaniacs who would have carried on anyway, or because they really do know what they are doing…? It was a fabulous night, and I'd love to go again and this time see the burning tar barrels being rolled into the river! Ali .jpg)
Wakehurst Place Many thanks to Roz for the wonderful idea of visiting Wakehurst place for the Autumn colours. The maples were brilliant red, glowing on what was a rather misty day, larches and oaks on the turn, stunning beech woods and amazing yews in the Rock Walk - not to mention a huge variety of colourful fungi! It was a wonderful day out, enjoyed by everyone (except Trudi who didn't read her Newsletter properly and turned up on Sunday - let that be a lesson to you!) Canada Slides Many thanks to Dave and Trudi for sharing their fabulous slides of the Canadian Rockies with us. The views were both stunning and memorable, particularly those of Sentinel Pass which so caught Trudi's imagination (was it 6 pictures? 7?) and Dave's picture of a wolf munching on an elk which might have been just a spec of dust on the slide (you'll just have to take his word for it). National Trust Talk A lovely man with boundless enthusiasm and latin phrases tripping easily off his lips gave a brilliant talk on the subject of fungi. Illustrated with superb slides (mostly taken in Danbury Woods and Common) his talk took you through the bewildering variety of different mushrooms and fungi. Assorted colours, textures, sizes and habits were all included, particularly how edibles often have a sinister relative that looks just like them! I just wish I'd had his tips on fungus photography before we went to Wakehurst! |
|
It
looks like the Millennium is our year! Rodings Rally saw us take home
the trophy that we last won in 1993. This is a superb achievement by
our teams in what turned out to be rather challenging conditions.