Orienteers from BUMC went on a weekend away to South Wales.
On the 8th-9th November, the orienteers from BUMC went on a weekend away to South Wales, where we trained on the fell, competed in a night orienteering event in the woods, and then a Welsh League event on sand dunes. Orienteering is an adventure-based sport where competitors have to navigate across terrain to checkpoints as quickly as they can. It's a bit like a trail race, but you have to think on your feet to plan your route and try not to get lost! Our Orienteering Sec, Alexandra, recounted the weekend…
Before I start this trip report, Katie would like it prefaced that the main thing that occurred on this trip was, in fact, orienteering, despite what this article makes it seem. To start our trip in the usual chaotic manner, Harry Bratcher-Howard forgot his shoes, had to return to his accommodation, which then led to him dropping all of his stuff down the stairs, before a search party was required to go and collect him. Down at Green Park Sainsbury's, I brought enough layers and snacks for a week-long trip while Hugh packed extremely sparingly with only one small backpack. Will continued his streak of not being able to fuel up an MPV, but this time, he got the diesel all over his hands.
Starting the music jam led to many interesting song requests, including Let It Go from Frozen, leading to renditions of the song from both vehicles. Katie was under the impression that, after living in Wales most of her life, she could navigate it successfully. Regardless of this, she took a turn out of the services that led us back along the M4 to Bath. Even with this detour, we arrived at Pen Rhiw Wen with plenty of time to do some courses on the fell. There was a range of courses planned for our training, including some compass challenges, corridors and long legs. Katie and Harry F went out on the long legs course and, in an attempt to slow Harry down, Katie did some coaching on how to orienteer on the fell. For lunch, Will brought uncooked microwaveable rice and a curry – maybe he thought that there would be a microwave on the fell? To finish off the training part of the weekend, there was an inter-university 2 x 2 relay.
On the way to the night event at Briton Ferry Woods, Hugh lost his song request privileges for the rest of the weekend after he suggested Everything is Awesome from The Lego Movie. At the night event, Harry BH made another appearance with his headtorch that is probably brighter than the sun. Everyone enjoyed the night event, with some amazing results from Ed with 420 points, Joel and Katie both with 500 points, a true changing of the guard for our orienteering secs. Katie attributes part of her result to the stress-inducing fireworks going off nearby, making the woodland feel like a warzone. Nothing like mild PTSD to make you run your best!
Food prep was quite chaotic with all of us crying over onions, Katie vehemently disagreeing with the addition of mushrooms into our pasta sauce, and Will deciding that we needed to organise cooking tasks as if we were trying to obtain Mahara skills (lucky IMEE students?). Luckily, Ed and Will have backup careers if engineering doesn’t work out – they plan to become dinner ladies (direct quote from Edward Stockham himself).
Thanks to one of the university’s pet warthog snoring all night (phrasing courtesy of Adam), most of us didn’t sleep very well. If anyone was asleep, they surely awoke to the song that played as an alarm at 6 am. Unlike on the Summer Trip, I did not migrate into anyone’s beds during the night; possibly because Katie poked me in the ribs in the middle of the night when I started to drift towards Katie’s mat in her sleep.
With a yellow warning of rain ahead of us, we made our way to Kenfig Burrows for our final part of the weekend. Will and the MPV team almost didn’t make it as he nearly missed the turn to the event location. We had some fabulous results with Ethan and Pip both winning their courses, Harry B-H having a very speedy run despite a knee injury, and everyone got some good experience with orienteering on sand dunes. Most of us settled into the navigation as the event went on, and it was a mostly enjoyable area until you had to go up extremely steep sand dunes for the run-in. Will had uncooked microwaveable rice for lunch again; maybe he just can’t get enough of crunchy rice.
On the way back to Bath, there was lots of rain, so we couldn’t see much on the motorway, warranting some rude gestures between the drivers when the MPV cut in front of Katie’s car (aka Peggy the Kia Picanto). I was in full control of the music in the car on the ride back, which meant I could finally play some Hozier without my choices being removed from the jam and replaced with Wurzels' songs.