Edinburgh Zoo

Family trip to the zoo. Cold and damp but saw a surprisingly good number of the top animals being reasonably active - pandas, meerkats, sloth, armadillo, koala, giraffe. Lunch at the Grasslands restaurant.

Festive Frolic - Levenhall Links

Amidst all the CoVid restrictions the orienteering calendar has thankfully been running nearly as normal. The ELO Festive Frolic is always an enjoyable hour of activity. It was a festive word search on the otherwise fairly straightforward terrain of Levenhall Links in Musselburgh. A pretty decent effort picking up a pre-planned 10 letter word - would have got a few more points if I'd also focussed on some of the obvious words on the map. Great event.

Christmas 2021

We had Max and Hannah staying for a good length of time over the Christmas period and Les visiting on Christmas Day.

South Coast Walking

Colin had to attend the LV= Special General Meeting in Bournemouth on Friday 10th December. A very early flight down to Southampton and then picked up a hire car at the airport as the plan was to enjoy a few days walking rather than just do up and down in a day.

The meeting wasn't due to start until midday and I was in the car by 8.30 am. Drove down to Lepe Country Park on the southern sea front. A fairly pleasant location and went for a short walk along the beach and on the inland path just a few metres in from the beach. A nice coffee and snack at The Lookout before the very pleasant onward drive to the office in Bournemouth. Overnight stop (for 2 nights) was the North Poole Premier Inn.

On Saturday the weather in the morning was OK with a forecast for wetter weather later in the day. The route to the sea went through Corfe Castle where I stopped for a short wander around. I was too early for the Castle or anywhere for morning coffee.

I drove onwards to Swanage and walked through town along the seafront and on to Peveril Point. On route enjoyed a nice coffee and croisant.

The Wellington Clock Tower in Swanage was an interest building. Original built at the southern approach to London Bridge it was moved and re-erected here in 1867. A lot of heavy stuff was moved in boats from London to Swanage as the boats taking stone to London needed ballast on the return journey for stability.

The onward walk went via Durlston Country Park and I stopped just short of Dancing Ledge taking the low path out and high path back. A nice lunch at Durlston Castle.

On Sunday the weather wasn't so good with heavy rain in the morning and I sat in the car for quite a while waiting for the rain to clear. It eventually improved allowing a shorter circuit which started at Renscombe Car Park near Worth Travers village and went to the coast at Purbeck Radar Memorial and then along the coast towards Chapman's Pool and completing a loop back to the car park.

After that a drive back to Southampton Airport and a fairly long wait for the flight home.

Glasgow Park Championships

One of my favourite orienteering events. Three parks around Glasgow with relatively straightforward and very short sprint courses. 

Park 1 was Glasgow Green in the freezing cold. A very simple course but made a howler of an error running confidently to the wrong place around 400m beyond the control sight and losing 3 or more minutes on a course taking around 20 mins to to finish.

Park 2 was Alexandra Park. A nice urban park and fairly straightforward but started off with a big error on control 1. I think allowed myself to be distracted by other runners and their routes rather than careful focus on the map and my own choices.

Park 3 was Drumpellier which I had run recently so was pretty familiar territory. A better run this time but not enough to compensate for prior errors.

Still - a good fun day out even if my performances were very poor.