Bruce’s Report #11
It’s late on the evening of the 2nd day 80m contest of the German championships. Well today didn’t turn out to be a great deal easier despite the alleged lack of bad bearings on 80m !
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| Walking to Start | 80m Receivers | The Aussie Area |
I ended up in the middle of the field again (18th) with 5 foxes and 95 minutes or so. Adam managed 86 minutes also with 5 foxes. There was one tranmitter #5 which was very low in power. I lucked near it when I was heading for another fox (actually on a dud bearing!), so got there in 12 minutes or so. Lost myself on the map a bit going to the next one at #4 which did nothing good for my time. I had thought I’d kinda stuffed up the order, but I had little choice since I could only hear 3 foxes at the start (not including my 1st fox!). As it turns out I did end up doing one of the better courses having managed #5 1st. Many had to return there at the end, which was right back to near the Start. The start and finish were exactly the same as for the 2m competition, so I just used the same map again. I relocated luckily on the way to #3 and after that my course was about as good as I’d do with a still slightly sore heel (it varied). I had about a 5km run back to the finish from the last transmitter. A long way between controls ! One split between #1 and #2 transmitters was one of the best times (aren’t splits marvelous in improving your outlook).
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| Adam Starting 80m | Adam’s Map (messy!) | Bruce Finishing 80m |
As usual we botted a lift to the presentation for the 80m event also at the Bier Hall. Also since this was the last event in their series they had overall tally placeholders for each division. Thanks to Stefan and Stefan for various translations when my limited German could’nt cope. We presented the WIA clock to DARC in our appreciation of a wonderful challenging event. It showed exactly how to run a good competiton with many competitors. They have had lots of practice at this and it all runs very smoothly (well it looks to an outsider like it runs smoothly anyway !). They want us to come back again! The British team commented they have been coming for a few years now, so they are no longer such a novelty :-).
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| Final Presentations | Stephan Won Juniors | German Competitors |
Afterwards we went for a look at nearby Passau, a lovely town with cobbled streets and huge churches in the European style. Thanks to our hosts, and the great Bavarian style meal we all enjoyed at a BierGarden in Passau.
The Alte Schule gasthaus where were staying also had two mini 9 pin bowling alleys, so we had much fun afterwards along with a Dutch ARDF family also staying there with a bowling competition.
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| Passau | Passau Streets | Bowling at AlteSchule |
Tommorow we head off back to Frankfurt, and Stephan (not to be confused with Stefan, Stefan or even Stefan) has invited us to stay with his family for the night before our flight to China on Tuesday.
So Aufweidersehen for now, and thanks to DARC for the hardest contest so far on our itineray.
Cheers,
Bruce