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More confused ramblings from an east coast train stopper /'Glenmore' Tour 2005 - Report by Graham ParkesThis is really supposed to be about the 2005 Glenmore Tour. Unfortunately, I haven’t been to Glenmore, and so I can tell you nothing about what happened there. Instead, I will attempt to interest you in what happened at Badaguish, which, fortunately, I did visit, and was where you would have found the misnamed Glenmore Tour. The fun all started with various recognized faces to be found at Stevenage station, early one Saturday morning. We piled on the train, and were off. This year, I made it somewhat farther than York before stopping the train (with a little help from the presence of certain East-Anglian M16), and waited until 15 minutes south of Edinburgh before inducing terminal locomotive failure – it has more style than simple door locking problems. This has the added benefit that a goodly proportion of the tour members were on the train when it stopped. Just to make it an even more memorable experience, we also had no air conditioning, there were no openable windows, and it was a baking July day. GNER decided to send us an engineer after a while, but s/he wasn’t a lot of use, so we had to wait for a substantially slower rescue train to pootle down from Edinburgh to give us a tow. We eventually got to Edinburgh, went to look for a departure board and found the next Aviemore train was not leaving for ages. So we usefully occupied ourselves by filling in compensation claims, getting ripped off at the loos, and gracing Burger King with our custom. This took us through to departure time, and we commenced our onward journey, spread through another GNER train, this year one with seats available in the carriages and not just the loos – so an improvement on last year! This left us with a minibus ride to Badaguish, where the entertainment continued. Due to organisational problems, most of us had to spend the first night in the bunkhouse in which the blokes were spending the rest of the week – somewhat cramped conditions. We all got a bed, even if it was at a Youth Hostel, so it wasn’t too unbearable. Tour proper started on Uath Lochan, where soft southerners (like me), and even some Scots were quickly reminded of the fact that some places in the UK don’t have to survive on a diet of Park-O. I began with an attack points exercise, with the nice twist that the map had been doctored so that there were no longer any paths on it. This went alright for the first leg, then I made a 90 degree error, got lost, did headless chicken imitations, then worked out where I was and continued with my course, thereafter the only problem was finding a re-entrant in a vague undulating area. I followed this with a bearings exercise, on another doctored map, this time dimmed down so that you could only just see it. This wasn’t too bad, I usually arrived at the right area and often even found the control without map consultation. I finished the morning with part of the catching features exercise, which again was within my grasp. This was followed by much needed calorie intake, and then the afternoon’s exercise, a control pick, most of which was in an area of scarily low visibility. It also must have been around this afternoon when we had our first, and last, water fight of the week. Monday saw us going past Lagganlia, and its famous tepee, as we headed for Lagganlia’s local forest – Inshriach. We started our day by leaving a collection of local lichens and woods on one of the Lagganlia minibus’s windscreen, before heading into the heart of Inshriach South, an interesting collection of brown lines with the odd misleading path, ride or veg. boundary to add to our enjoyment. It also has vast numbers of an infamous indigenous species – the midge. We had a huge range of exercises to choose from / work through. I started off with an attack points, which I followed with a simplification and then a map without the tracks marked – which was less hard than one might think as the paths are so confusing. Some point that morning also started my blisters, which proved to be an inconvenience for the next three weeks. Since Lagganlia was also there, we got nicely confused by random control kites, but also reminded of how much easier Lagganlia was – their controls were all on relatively large features. That afternoon, we had a relay, using Emit, and I mispunched despite being seen punching by a coach, probably because of a low battery in my brick. Tuesday meant we trooped up to Lossie, for, in my opinion, some of the best orienteering of the whole week. This started off with two exercises, one in a lovely area of scarily intricate dunes, and then an exercise (which I skived off because of my blisters) on the fast, open, relatively vague area inshore, followed by a visit to the beach. That afternoon we ran a slightly abbreviated version of last year’s British elite champs, complete with cameraperson at one of the controls- useful since it got most of us confused, and meant I didn’t go my intended route to the control. This footage proved highly amusing at our casual video analysis session and proved that most of us need to work on our control flow! Wednesday was a day that really splits into a number of sections. Officially denoted as a rest day, we still started off by heading for Alvie. This began with an entertaining drive along a forest track halfway up a cliff. We then had a trains exercise up to the top of the hill(this is where you hang two controls, and continue to a finish. Meanwhile, another runner starts off slightly behind you, trying to catch you up, collecting the controls on route. The exercise is then repeated, with the two runners the other way round.) This was followed by a course back down to the bottom. We headed back to Badaguish, dumped our kit and headed for the rings. This consists of a (very shallow) pond, above which is a rope. From this, a series of ropes hang down with rings on their ends. The intention is that one gracefully swings from ring to ring until you have crossed the pool, which has a jagged rock bottom, and very cold water. Some people managed, I didn’t, instead getting an impressively large bruise for my pains. We showered, changed, and then collected way too much wood for that evening’s barbecue – it kept it going late into the night, before heading for Loch Morlich to play football, get very cold in the Loch etc, and where we met the Lagganlia group for the second time that tour. We returned to Badaguish for a weird game of rounders played to a progressively evolving set of non-standard rules (so I am reliably informed – I never was a team sports person), which apparently finished in a draw, implying a less than impartial ref! We then stuffed ourselves (whilst playing hide and seek with an aforementioned indigenous species), before discovering that this year’s Lagganlia tour acts as if they are allergic to cake – not that this bothered us, we were quite capable of clearing off the rest. This was followed by long sagas in the barbeque hut, telling of the entertaining incidents of the tour so far, the majority of which isn’t up to the standards of such a salubrious publication or readership as this. Wednesday was also memorable for being the day when we appropriated the site wheelbarrow, for use as a wheelchair cum stretcher cum straightjacket for Ralph, who turned his ankle coming down Alvie. Thursday was the start of the tour champs, but we started off with a little training. Originally the whole day was supposed to be somewhere else, but some evil blighter decided to extend the capercaillie season for a week (it used to end that Wednesday), and we only found out on Tuesday. Fortunately there isn’t exactly a shortage of good terrain in the area (we moved to Achlean), but it meant a frantic replan for Don, who was also being examined for some coaching qualification or other. It also meant a huge map copying session from the coaches, which we never properly thanked them for. However, despite the pressure, a first rate set of courses appeared in front of us that morning, from a control pick on the intricate confusing stuff, to a compass and pacing on the vague stuff, where it was somewhat necessary to work by compass and pacing! I believe there was also a map memory, but I never did this, opting for giving the blisters a rest and running the sprint (or middle these days) that afternoon. The middle race consisted of a set of three loops, thereby gaffling the courses. The controls were often close enough together to be extremely confusing. I came last, but only by a desperate hell for leather dash down a stump strewn hillside and along a track to the finish stake, which I was beaten to by seconds. This means, one year after I set out, I have finally completed a middle race on Achlean (last year I ran into a tree, a practice I would advise against). Friday started with intense mental preparation (supposedly) for the Classic Race of the tour champs, on Loch Vaa – the open, heather filled southern section thereof. We arrived by a nice stone arched bridge, over which the occasional steam train passed. We prepared, then at intervals over the morning set off on the 1k walk to the start along a gravel track. We then slowly stripped down to pyjamas, a sight which probably somewhat spooked the rather gentile, sedentary passengers of the trains rattling along the track. The course started with a relatively gentle leg to the other side of the spur we started by, before throwing us in at the deep end, with the first of many 800m + legs across untracked heather – a good recipe to get lost by the time you get to the fine navigation round the control. Out of the seven starters, I came fourth, which was a good result for me, especially since I was hobbling by the end – the blisters reminded me of there presence with a vengeance. I cadged a lift to the bottom, to engage in that important section of post race routine – eating vast quantities of food (but not as vast as I really wanted – my fault). We then went back to the area for a last relay, in which I took the all important role of photographer. Back at Badaguish we engaged in a sack packing marathon – any theories to how kit expands so much over a week, preferably backed up with solid proof would be most welcome, especially if they come with a solution in reach of your average scrupulously untidy, badly organised 16 year old. This and cake eating took us most of the way to dinner, along with postulating on the identity of the thief who stole the reserves of Tullie cake. The tour dinner was a good laugh, served by the coaches with vast amounts of reverence, and plenty of sirring and madaming. The tour prizegiving ended the dinner, with something for every athlete. Seeing as we were never let into Tescos, we didn’t manage to reciprocate. This was about the end of the tour, but we still managed to make the customary break for freedom at some unearthly hour (so I’m told – I slept through it) and to have a pillow war against the younger coaches (that’s probably a tame description of it – we came to the conclusion the cake thief was a coach, so we ambushed them at intervals through Sunday morning, and they fought back to a greater or lesser degree). We then a took a coach over the Tomintoul road, which was an interesting experience in such a large vehicle, to get to Crathes Castle for the start of the Scottish 6 Days. Lastly I would like to thank a whole host of people :
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