With the wonderful weather continuing I decided to go of into the woods and do a spot of orienteering. I had purchased a map from the local sports shop and was keen to give it a go. I could tell on the other hand that Maria wasn’t quite so sure. It was the "tell me which control points you are starting with so I know where to look if you don’t come home" comment that kind of gave it away. But I know how to orienteer I thought remembering the days about 12 years ago when I used to do the sport with my dad, it was hardly very supportive to suggest I would get lost now was it? So off I cycled to the woods where the course is set out, mumbling "as if I would get lost" quietly to myself.

10 minutes later I was starting my jog into the woods. 10 minutes after that I realised I was lost. The nature reserve just wasn’t doing what the map said it should be. Crossroads of two main junctions, but that’s a t-junction, and surely it should be bending to the left by now. A small portion of the little voices in my head were suggesting that now might be a good time to give up. But I couldn’t admit defeat that easily. It would have been terrible to return home and admit that although I had found 2 control points neither of them were the 25 that I was looking for.

After a better look at the map I realised I had totally misread the scale of the map and had unknowingly run passed one control point at least twice. With my new found knowledge the hunt was on. The sense of achievement of finding the first control point started to push away the feeling of stupidity of not being able to read a map. The second and third just feel into place. The fourth was easy to find but getting to it proved a bit harder. Pushing throw the trees to get to the marker only to find that there was a reasonably path leading to it just a stone throw away. Okay so that was stupid but I didn’t care about that anymore I was having fun.

On the way to the 5th a small deer ran across the path in front of me before taking cover into the undergrowth. We spent a few minutes observing each other before he became bored with my and went on his way. I tried to track him for a while but with the dry undergrowth and my clumsiness I didn’t stand a chance. But that didn’t matter I had a good day out in the countryside and had started to run again after my bout of the flu. And I still have 20 more control points to find but that can wait for another day, just as long as no one suggest I might get lost. Related photos