This Easter the annual JK Festival took place in central Scotland and a small group of WIMs made the long journey to join 2400 other orienteers in 4 days of testing competition, varying from Sprint O in Livingston new town to tough moorland terrain in the highlands of Perthshire.

Livingston New Town is a large scale version of Poundbury without the architectural interest with a maze of pedestrian residential areas interspersed with parkland, providing a fast and furious competition which suited several WIMs who successfully balanced leg and brain power to be highly placed. Keith Henderson won the M70 class with Richard Brightman, Nikki Crawford and Sue Hands all being in the top 10 of their respective classes. The weather was a bit drizzly, the locals seemed a bit bemused and a fair number of competitors combined Sprint  O with some 'retail therapy' in the nearby shopping centre before setting out across the Forth Road Bridge towards the mountains and forests which awaited us north of Perth.

      

 

If you haven't been to this part of Scotland, Perthshire is quite a revelation with high mountains rising to over 3000' in the north to rolling fertile farmland in the south. Did you know that some of the finest raspberries in Britain are grown in Perthshire? The change between the rugged highlands and smiling lowland is sudden and spectacular and this margin was the venue for two days of competition round Dunkeld.         

Saturday dawned dry and mild to the great relief of the car park team and 2400 competitors headed into rugged mountain terrain near Loch Rannoch in the shadow of the spectacular pyramid peak of Schiehallion. Forget any moans about rough terrain in southern England, if you go to highland Scotland you get a menu of low visibility,  heather tussocks covering hummocky terrain scattered with boulders, mind and leg bending contour detail, slopes that you could easily fall off, man eating marshes and 10' high ladders over uncrossable deer fences. The word 'endurance' springs to mind but all WIMs got round their respective courses in respectable positions in their classes, the day's outstanding success being Nikki Crawford gaining 2nd place in her class. After the JK Nikki and Sue set off to compete in 'the Highlander Mountain Marathon' in NW Scotland!!!

      

 

On Sunday the event relocated on the outskirts of Dunkeld to sample the challenge of the legendary area of Craig a Barns. The competition area towers over the town with huge crags and pine trees seemingly clinging to impossible slopes. This was the area where the damage wrought by the winter storms became a practical problem with large areas of severe windblow where the best route would have been to use a helicopter!. Not to be outdone WIM came up trumps with both Keith Henderson and Nikki Crawford gaining 2nd place in their class but also a great run by Richard Brightman who was well placed despite suffering a nasty fall caused by hidden wire.

 

Parallel to the main event Dick Keighley was the organiser of two days of top class Trail O. On the Saturday it was held near Pitlochry, but on Sunday it was within walking distance of the main event set in stunning scenery along the banks of the river Tay, overlooked by Dunkeld Cathedral. A hard working band of volunteers had set out a course that was quite literally mind bending and attracted well over 100 competitors who tested their brains and judgement against some top class planning. You may not know that Dick is the co-ordinator for the World Trail O Championships to be held in Scotland in early June so the JK was a final rehearsal for the big event to be held near St Andrews on the sand dunes of Fife.

The JK Relay event is always planned to be an exciting spectator event and Easter Monday proved to be no exception. The venue was close to Dunkeld on yet another steep hill with a mixture of heather, bracken and coniferous forest combined with a lot of contours and crags. The elite classes seemed to just float across the terrain skipping uphill whilst other mortals struggled to make real progress in a respectable time. The setting was spectacular and so were some of the times, but one of the downsides proved to be the loos where huge queues had to wait up to 30 minutes which caused a great deal of panic in the changeover pen! The WIM representatives were two teams in the M and W 165+ classes. The ladies Sue Hands, Gillian Cross and Nikki Crawford managed a very sound result mid-way in their class. The men enjoyed the challenge and had value for money!

It didn't rain all weekend until we were about to leave the Relay Car Park which meant that there was plenty of opportunity to walk round, meet people and generally chat which is one a the great pleasures of multi day events where no one has to leave to drive long distances. It was also good to go out shopping, or to a cafe or a visitor attraction and be almost certain that you'd meet someone you knew to share experiences with. Orienteers may like to compete alone but once the competition is over there is nothing more enjoyable than sharing experiences with contemporaries and rivals!

John Warren

Photos courtesy of Rob Lines and Wendy Carlyle