Sixty seven Orienteers, including 23 from Sarum, donned headlights and took to the streets of Salisbury for a Wessex Night League event. A fortunate gap in the rain gave everyone a dry and reasonably warm night out. Unfortunately for Planner Charlotte and Organiser Liz, however, a mid-afternoon downpour drenched them when putting out controls in the afternoon.
The Start/Finish was in Salt Lane Car Park and runners had to plan their routes around the centre of the City, up to the Arts Centre and into Elizabeth Gardens. The event was in Score format with a total of 500 points available for getting to all 28 controls within the 1 hour time limit. As ever, nothing is made simple and only odd numbered controls were to be collected before even numbered ones (or vice versa) with only one change over allowed. The usual 10 point penalty was applied for each minute taken over the hour. On finishing many runners repaired to local hostelry the hospitable Five Bells for the usual post-run route/errors/complaints discussions – there were very few of the latter category.
Seven competitors achieved the maximum score within the hour with Alan Blanchflower (WSX) overall winner in 47.11 min., 1.25 min. ahead of Sarum’s Dan Cope, Dan Gallagher, and Charles Bromley Gardner of Sarum were all in the top 500 point group.
It was great to see such a good turnout of juniors with Toby Halsey and Jamie Harris both scoring well. Juniors had to be accompanied by parents, some of whom returned slightly exhausted from their shadowing.
As you can see from the photo (courtesy Liz Yeadon), the juniors proved expert not only in Night O but also in chilling out.
Grateful thanks to Planners Ricky and Charlotte Thornton, Organiser Liz Yeadon and a special thank you to Hugh Holmes for managing the computing, the first time our new kit has been applied to a Score event.