A Start to the Rodings Rally

The sun shone as we met by Chingford Golf course to start the checkpoint plotting for this year’s Rally in November. We had hoped to locate the positions for three of the nine checkpoints, but things did not quite turn out as planned...

A short walk from the car park - but up hill - had us reaching for the water bottles as the heat built up. Peter split us into three groups to triangulate on the allotted place and off we went, armed with compasses and tape measures. After what seemed an age two groups had managed to get to within 50 metres of each other and the third hadn’t found where they were supposed to start.

We gave up on that one and walked to another location to try measuring locating another one of our proposed checkpoints. Anyone who says Essex is flat hasn’t walked in this part of Epping Forest, and we staggered up the slopes raising quite a heat. More swallowing of water and then we scattered again to come together at the allotted place. This time one group was far away from the others so we gave up again.

We walked back to Bury Road car park and drove to the bikers’ hut near High Beach where we had a snack, admired the new hut and enjoyed the sun. We all agreed we had had a good time and next time we were definitely going to be more accurate.

Brian U. 23rd July 2016

“It was here when I last looked”