Girl's Weekend away

Cunningly disguised as an orienteering Women's Coaching Weekend, this weekend was the perfect excuse for 26 women to escape to Maldon for two days of entertainment, gossip, drinking, and... oh yeah... some orienteering.

Friday night started with a yummy dinner and a questionnaire where we had to rank ourselves on a scale of 1 (suck) to 5 (expert) on such things like "running through broken ground", "terrain interpretation", and "route planning". Fortunately, we didn't have to confess to anything in public, although there was a lot of hilarity at each table as we completed it.

Saturday morning was at a dam just out of Maldon where we did some practical exercises in Attack Points and a Line Course in following compass bearings. After a picnic lunch we had a team's "race" to bring all the controls back in - I was first to my 2 controls to earn my team 18 points. :-)

~9 km

Because of the heat, we abandoned any further plans for an energetic afternoon, and spent it wandering around Maldon, checking out the bottle store, playing on the climbing wall, and basically having a lazy afternoon. Found a Gnome Factory (must-see!) and bought a frog (below)

Cocktails were accompanied by a "what am I" control description game, followed by a 3-course dinner and lots of wine. Hot, stinky night.

what am I?


Sunday, we left Maldon and headed for Chewton forest to do Control Picking and Out-Guessing The Course Setter. Most of us did it at a very sedate pace in near 40-degree heat, and we didn't have to do the final sprint to get the controls either.

~4 km

Fun, enjoyable weekend.

Weight	72.0 kgs ▲
Walking	19.7 kms
Running	28.2 kms
Cycling	37.3 kms