Myself and my colleague Geoff spent most of Friday afternoon and evening, all of Saturday, and a large part of Sunday driving, navigating, clue solving and code-board spotting. For those that don't know, clue-solving involves looking for something in the surrounding environment (which might be a road sign, a milestone, a house name, an advertising hoarding, a bridge, a statue or some other permanent object) which matches or solves a clue on the question sheet. Code boards are small plaques (in this case made from cut-up old car number plates) with numbers and letters on them that are attached to posts, walls, gates (or in some cases hidden inside gorse bushes!) which must be recorded in the correct order during the section. Some of them are very effectively concealed!
I had hoped to be able to stop and take lots of photographs, but the longest stop that we had during an event day was at White Scar caves when we had about fifteen minutes break - the rest of the time we were on the go, or it was dark and raining (or all three!) and thus photography was out of the question.
The rendezvous and start point was the Britpart Depot near Shrewsbury. After scrutineering, and stickering up the vehicle with sponsor stickers and our team number, I set up the navigation tech. As well as two in-car satnavs (A NavMan and a TomTom), Geoff had his Garmin etrex (whihc proved very useful when our odometer failed) and I had rigged up a small Asus Eee PC (running Ubuntu Linux) with the Memory Maps application running under WINE windows emulation, with the full set of UK Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 maps, connected to a bluetooth GPS module. The combination worked brilliantly all weekend, and I have to say that because of it, we had no problems in navigation at all, even when the maps supplied by the orgainisers were a bit vague.
We drove up to Shrewsbury, and towards the motorway, then up past Manchester and Liverpool, through Lancashire, into the North Yorkshire National Park to White Scar Caves, then on across the Pennines, via the Tan Hill Inn (the highest inn in the UK, and no, we didn't have time to stop) through the snow and increasing dark down towards Darlington, where we camped for the night, at a place called Doe Park near Barnard Castle. As we had not had any warning about where we were going to be heading or what to expect (and thought that there would be more night work) we did not have any camping gear with us and thus had to sleep in the vehicle all night - not much fun as it got very cold and was very uncomfortable. We had supposed that we'd only be grabbing quick naps here and there.
The next morning we drove northwards through the north Pennines up into Northumberland, with various exercises to do, over Hadrian's wall and into the border country. We had an off-road code-board section to complete in torrential rain in the Kielder Forest, then another navigation and clue-spotting session up and over the fells into Scotland, then yet another one, with added complex navigation tasks which took us through fog, and then high winds and pouring rain, in the dark, to Lockerbie.
There was supposed to be a long night section, involving navigation and possibly off-road action, but the organisers held a drivers' meeting at 21:30 and told us that it had been cancelled due to the weather (which was a disappointment for us, as it was the one section where we thought we could make a good account of ourselves, being fairly experienced off-road drivers). Instead we were all given a paper-based navigation exercise to do. This took all of half an hour, then there was nothing to do until the next morning. We took a look at the crowded car park of the Queen's Hotel (which did not have any rooms free as it was hosting a 40th wedding anniversary party) and decided that another night trying to sleep in the Range Rover was not on - so we resorted to technology, found the nearest travel lodge (at Dumfries, less than nine miles away) and got two rooms. Ohhhh - the bliss of a hot bath and a comfortable bed - and a decent breakfast the next morning!
We arrived back at the start point fully fuelled up (us and the vehicle) and ready for the remainder of the event. There were four volunteer AA patrolmen with two fully equipped AA land rovers stuffed with spare parts on hand throughout the event (many thanks to them for donating their time and to the AA for providing the vehicles) and we managed to get some ATF to top up our transmission, which had got very low.
Then we had the morning briefing, lined up and left in team number order and were given our instructions for the first section. This was another navigation exercise, including more clue answering and code-board spotting, that took us through farmland and up into the hills, where we encountered more snow (just briefly) and then down towards the lowlands again, where there were a couple of short but enjoyable off-road sections in some forests and a large private estate.
At the last checkpoint on that, we were given our final instructions, which took us south and east along main roads where we had certain questions to answer on the way. We arrived at the very last checkpoint of the event at the Gretna Green services on the A74M at just after 1PM.
There was time for some quick refreshment, then a long drive south back out of Scotland, across the fells in Cumbria on the motorway and down to Warrington in Cheshire, where we all had rooms booked for the night at the De Vere Hotel in Daresbury.
Every team made it through, although one or two apparently got either lost or stuck along the way and had to be rescued (one vehicle got stuck in a field and was manhandled out of it by a handy party of walkers!)
According to the tracking data recorded by the laptop, we had travelled 982 Kilometers during the event, which is 613.75 miles - a lot of it in appalling weather and darkness.
Sunday night was the awards dinner, where the results of the various sections and the top fund-raisers were announced and given trophys. Predictably we didn't win anything. However, the best bit for me (after the charity auctioneer having to down a Chilli beer in one in return for a pound from each person present - he raised £162 and was speechless for a little while) was the news that this year's event, despite the problems in the economy, had raised £80,000 up to the end of the event on Sunday - there will be more to come. This was up from £77,000 at the same point last year. So thank you to everyone that sponsered us - you helped us get the total that the Mac4x4 has raised since it began to Half A Million Pounds!
The night got fairly raucous after that and it is probably best to draw a veil over it.
We got some sleep and drove back to Keogh HQ, arriving just after lunch on Monday. We then had the long job of stripping out all the tools, equipment and technology that we had fitted into the Rangie, and Geoff then left with his car full.
We'll be doing it again (although I don't know if we can manage the 2010 event) and hope that when we do, you'll be able to support us as you did so well this year.
Many thanks.
Sean Keogh & Geoff Campbell.
I had hoped to be able to stop and take lots of photographs, but the longest stop that we had during an event day was at White Scar caves when we had about fifteen minutes break - the rest of the time we were on the go, or it was dark and raining (or all three!) and thus photography was out of the question.
The rendezvous and start point was the Britpart Depot near Shrewsbury. After scrutineering, and stickering up the vehicle with sponsor stickers and our team number, I set up the navigation tech. As well as two in-car satnavs (A NavMan and a TomTom), Geoff had his Garmin etrex (whihc proved very useful when our odometer failed) and I had rigged up a small Asus Eee PC (running Ubuntu Linux) with the Memory Maps application running under WINE windows emulation, with the full set of UK Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 maps, connected to a bluetooth GPS module. The combination worked brilliantly all weekend, and I have to say that because of it, we had no problems in navigation at all, even when the maps supplied by the orgainisers were a bit vague.
We drove up to Shrewsbury, and towards the motorway, then up past Manchester and Liverpool, through Lancashire, into the North Yorkshire National Park to White Scar Caves, then on across the Pennines, via the Tan Hill Inn (the highest inn in the UK, and no, we didn't have time to stop) through the snow and increasing dark down towards Darlington, where we camped for the night, at a place called Doe Park near Barnard Castle. As we had not had any warning about where we were going to be heading or what to expect (and thought that there would be more night work) we did not have any camping gear with us and thus had to sleep in the vehicle all night - not much fun as it got very cold and was very uncomfortable. We had supposed that we'd only be grabbing quick naps here and there.
The next morning we drove northwards through the north Pennines up into Northumberland, with various exercises to do, over Hadrian's wall and into the border country. We had an off-road code-board section to complete in torrential rain in the Kielder Forest, then another navigation and clue-spotting session up and over the fells into Scotland, then yet another one, with added complex navigation tasks which took us through fog, and then high winds and pouring rain, in the dark, to Lockerbie.
There was supposed to be a long night section, involving navigation and possibly off-road action, but the organisers held a drivers' meeting at 21:30 and told us that it had been cancelled due to the weather (which was a disappointment for us, as it was the one section where we thought we could make a good account of ourselves, being fairly experienced off-road drivers). Instead we were all given a paper-based navigation exercise to do. This took all of half an hour, then there was nothing to do until the next morning. We took a look at the crowded car park of the Queen's Hotel (which did not have any rooms free as it was hosting a 40th wedding anniversary party) and decided that another night trying to sleep in the Range Rover was not on - so we resorted to technology, found the nearest travel lodge (at Dumfries, less than nine miles away) and got two rooms. Ohhhh - the bliss of a hot bath and a comfortable bed - and a decent breakfast the next morning!
We arrived back at the start point fully fuelled up (us and the vehicle) and ready for the remainder of the event. There were four volunteer AA patrolmen with two fully equipped AA land rovers stuffed with spare parts on hand throughout the event (many thanks to them for donating their time and to the AA for providing the vehicles) and we managed to get some ATF to top up our transmission, which had got very low.
Then we had the morning briefing, lined up and left in team number order and were given our instructions for the first section. This was another navigation exercise, including more clue answering and code-board spotting, that took us through farmland and up into the hills, where we encountered more snow (just briefly) and then down towards the lowlands again, where there were a couple of short but enjoyable off-road sections in some forests and a large private estate.
At the last checkpoint on that, we were given our final instructions, which took us south and east along main roads where we had certain questions to answer on the way. We arrived at the very last checkpoint of the event at the Gretna Green services on the A74M at just after 1PM.
There was time for some quick refreshment, then a long drive south back out of Scotland, across the fells in Cumbria on the motorway and down to Warrington in Cheshire, where we all had rooms booked for the night at the De Vere Hotel in Daresbury.
Every team made it through, although one or two apparently got either lost or stuck along the way and had to be rescued (one vehicle got stuck in a field and was manhandled out of it by a handy party of walkers!)
According to the tracking data recorded by the laptop, we had travelled 982 Kilometers during the event, which is 613.75 miles - a lot of it in appalling weather and darkness.
Sunday night was the awards dinner, where the results of the various sections and the top fund-raisers were announced and given trophys. Predictably we didn't win anything. However, the best bit for me (after the charity auctioneer having to down a Chilli beer in one in return for a pound from each person present - he raised £162 and was speechless for a little while) was the news that this year's event, despite the problems in the economy, had raised £80,000 up to the end of the event on Sunday - there will be more to come. This was up from £77,000 at the same point last year. So thank you to everyone that sponsered us - you helped us get the total that the Mac4x4 has raised since it began to Half A Million Pounds!
The night got fairly raucous after that and it is probably best to draw a veil over it.
We got some sleep and drove back to Keogh HQ, arriving just after lunch on Monday. We then had the long job of stripping out all the tools, equipment and technology that we had fitted into the Rangie, and Geoff then left with his car full.
We'll be doing it again (although I don't know if we can manage the 2010 event) and hope that when we do, you'll be able to support us as you did so well this year.
Many thanks.
Sean Keogh & Geoff Campbell.
Last modified: Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 11:25 AM