If there is a better orienteering area in the UK for allround views, sounds or wildlife, I've yet to experience it. We were lucky with the weather on the day, it can be horribly exposed on Rorrington in the wind and rain and there was plenty of that when control site checking and flag hanging ! On the day the sun and skylarks came out, there were a few mad march hares around (not just the orienteers) and the local foxes and buzzards put in an appearance...... if you looked up from your map for long enough to spot them.

Starting from the North end for a change was partly due to car-park permission problems, but gave the opportunity to send courses around the area visiting the most runnable bits in different directions to previous events. Its not the most technically challenging area overall, but can be made tricky if deciding on best route choice or estimating distance when moving at speed, so I tried to offer you some of that. The longer courses had an unavoidable climb back up the ridge towards the end....just to remind you its Shropshire !. Hopefully you enjoyed your course and the views .Times were quick from those who weren't standing around enjoying the scenery or off chasing hares.

The use of this area owes much to the mappers, especially Peter Jones ( and no-one saw Pete overshoot one of his boulders by about 200m....ahem.....so you shouldn't feel too bad if you also missed a control slightly !..... it should be pointed out that I managed to initially hang the first flag of the morning on entirely the wrong cairn then stand around scratching my head wondering just how the sheep had managed to fill all the adjacent pits in overnight !!).Colin Roscoe's dogged determination and local knowledge in securing access permissions was vital as were the usual team of Wrekin superstars who volunteer for all sorts of jobs that the people who say “ go on, lets have another event there” forget to consider.

Special thanks to the flag hangers and collectors. I promise to try to use a few less next time, estimate the distances / time involved a bit better and buy all the beers I now owe.

planner TONY

assistants Hartley Hare + Shaun Sheep.