What is it with the North East?

[FatBoy]

I've already said I'm not going to another NE event on an unknown area!

I don't see how any area can be "unknown" - check out the 1:25,000 map on the OS website and you can pretty quickly work out whether an area's going to be any good...

Not sure about that. Fylingdales Moor looks good on 1:25,000!

[Ed]

not really - sadly get-a-map doesn't allow linking, but try a search on SE9199 (Fylingdales Moor) and compare to SD2790 (Blawith & Torver Commons, area for the Tim Watkins Trophy in a couple of weeks), or even NT0398 (Simonside)...

[Spookster]

( I may have missed some)

That would be the whole Yorkshire & Humberside region that you've missed!

We have plenty of cr*p areas, but also some decent ones (e.g. Ewden Valley, Wharncliffe).

[FatBoy]

not really - sadly get-a-map doesn't allow linking, but try a search on SE9199 (Fylingdales Moor) and compare to SD2790 (Blawith & Torver Commons, area for the Tim Watkins Trophy in a couple of weeks), or even NT0398 (Simonside)...

Already looked. I agree it doesn't look as good as lakes for example but looks worth a visit. Sadly it wasn't. OK I concede that looking on 1:25,000 gives you a bit of a start, but it won't for example tell you the difference between Kyloe and Boltby.

[John Morris]

Ed wrote:-

"Mainly I think NE suffers from distance to major O centres (although Edinburgh's not that far away) and a poor image"

True, except that Edinbugh is that far away - it's a two hour drive over the high moors - which can be a grim journey on a winter morning or evening. It's much easier to reach Speyside or Cumbria.

The NE of England has a few small population nodes surrounded by beautiful, but empty landscapes. As someone else said, the same situation applies in Wales - imagine drumming up major support for an event on the equally pleasant, equally unexciting, moors behind Aberystwyth.

Major events in the NE of England regularly fail (financially) - unless there are no competing attractions within 4 hours travelling time south, north and west.

[Ed]

I'd disagree - Kyloe (NU0538) has wiggly (relatively) contours, bits of crags around the place, an old fort, some bits of mixed/deciduous trees, etc. Boltby (SE4989) has parallel contours (and lots of them), pretty much only confierous trees and little else.

OK, it can't tell you the difference between nice forest and nasty forest, but in terms of general technical challenge you can work out plenty.

Edinburgh isn't 2 hours over the moors away from Kyloe - an hour and a half round the A1 maybe (which isn't that much less than it is from Newcastle!)

[granny m]

Well, all you NE sceptics. Leaving Halden and moving to the North East was exactly what helped me to win a World Champs medal!!! Can't be that bad.

[graeme]

This looks like rubbish too...

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x ... search.srf

[Guest]

An aerial photo at 1:5000 or would that make everyone who looked at it n/c.
Fylingdales Moor
Blawith & Torver Commons
Simonside (small problem with scotland)

[Ed]

This looks like rubbish too...

it starts to look a bit better at 1:25,000 though (NH9215 in getamap)

[Guest]

Kyloe is a long way north.

Consider the other regional event this weekend - at Ash, one of the best areas in the SE. (And looks good too - see SU9153)

Anyone living south of a line roughly Liverpool-Sheffield is closer to Ash! Probably over 80% of the O-community

[Guest]

Of course, Kyloe is a long way south for some of us.

Obviously the orienteering borders are drawn in the wrong place. We should move the Scottish Border south to the Liverpool-Sheffield line and form a new Northern kingdom.

[Heather B]

2 hours from Edinburgh - really not that far! I would consider travelling that far from Anglesey do say a DEE area for a colour coded (or whatever you call them now) if there was nothing else to do. So it's all a matter of perspecive really, 2 hours is nothing to us out in the back of beyond

Wales, especially the North and west definitely has the same problem - that we are so far from anyone and most of our areas aint that great. Also with very few orienteers around we have problems staging large events - hence the reason that they don't happen all that often, in the north at least. Lots of clubs have bigger membership than the whole of the WOA.

[Guest]

Consider the other regional event this weekend - at Ash, one of the best areas in the SE. (And looks good too - see SU9153)

Obviously entries currently a bit low for Ash as well!

[brooner]

perhaps its a bit of a rubbish time of year for competitions, its the end of season, time to knuckle down to some winter training (ha!) and get out for some serious lengthy sessions in the hills, don't really need to be racing and having to travel some way to do so.

its all about the local scene.