Category Orienteering in Europe
Sunday in the Park in Bloomsbury
Our final City Race was held in the streets, parks and squares of elegant Bloomsbury, on a pleasant Sunday morning. We started from Birkbeck University at Torrington Square – coincidentally, exactly where Ian’s great grandfather and other family members lived for many years. He could have watched the whole event from his front doorstep. No […]
London Old and New
The City Race on Saturday was an Urban race rather than a sprint, ie longer legs in a less complex area. Starting in Bermondsey again, we were initially moaning about the 2 km walk to the Start. That is, until we actually did it. We followed the Thames Path along the south embankment, ducking through […]
City Racing
It was the annual London City Race which had drawn us here, along with the chance to revisit a place which has undergone massive changes in the past two decades; and to visit the East End places where Ian’s family once lived. Besides, no-one really needs an excuse to visit London, do they? The City […]
Who Do We Think We Are
I blame Michael Portillo. The man has spent years traversing Britain by train, hunting out the quirky and obscure on our behalf. Our second “Portillo” was a visit to Barters Bookshop, in the old Alnwick railway station. One of the walls has a list of all the Alnwick railway workers, and there are several Dodds […]
Bavarian O Tour – The Maps
Here are hi res versions of the maps from the Bavarian O-Tour. Best seen by saving images in order to view details. Day 1 – Bamberg. Long distance forest. I only did controls 9-11, as I rolled my ankle the day before. Day 2 – Stussenbach. Middle distance. Beautiful pine forest with scattered rock. This […]
Border Country
It was Sunday morning, and time for our first ever UK orienteering event. The local club, Newcastle and Tyneside Orienteers (NATO), were staging an urban race in Killingworth, which is an outer suburb of Newcastle. It was very relaxed, with a “choose your own start time and course”. We felt that we’d done our share […]
A Proper Castle and a Big Brick Tower
We farewelled our Schloss in the morning, but before long we were headed to another castle – Burg Trausnitz, which is perched on a hill above the city of Landshut, and which was the venue for the final day of the Bavarian O Tour. We’d been promised orienteering in and around the castle and on […]
Running Around Regensburg
It was just a short hop to Regensburg for the fourth race, as we resumed our orienteering program. We had a 900 metre walk to the start. Normally this is a chore, but today we headed off through wooded parkland beside the river, then past colourful houses, a fountain in a platz, under an arch, […]
Passau
Day 3 of the Bavarian O Tour was what we’d been waiting for – sprinting! We were promised a “long sprint” in the Old Town of Passau, which lies on a peninsula between the two rivers – the Danube and the Inn. You can see the confluence of these two rivers, as well as the […]
Doing It Tough
Sigh … another 25-degree sunny day, another Bavarian forest to orienteer in, another drive through impossibly picturesque rolling hills punctuated by impossibly picturesque Bavarian villages … life’s tough. The Merc purred down the gravel driveway. The electronic gate swung silently open. We turned left onto the main road, passing the Schloss, the first bridge, the […]
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