DARE in the Forest of Dean
Tim Budd / 19.10.2010
A Tom Gibbs course was always going to be a little bit special and when you add that to the great adventure racing terrain in the Forest of Dean, it was going to be some race! As only our second race this year, after about a years absence from the scene, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but the lure of a long canoeing section, and Flossie's tea drew us back to the DARE.
Looking at maps, it was clear this was going to be a relatively straight forward race in terms of what was going to come when, but with a lot of tactical route choices, which would be the absolute key to unlocking a decent score.
Our record in woods and forests, which has never been good - what with the ground never quite conforming to what is on the map, hasn’t been the best, so the first foot stage through the Forest of Dean wasn’t going to be our greatest moment. We took the navigation cautiously, and our time running through the area could best be described as long periods of confusion, interspersed with brief periods of absolute clarity, as we muddled our way South to the first special challenge stage.. The paths mostly went in the way we expected them to, but there were a fair few times when nothing made any sense at all - especially when we saw another team merrily going off a path into some undergrowth in search of ... well, I have no idea.
So we arrived at the first special stage, a climbing wall, with self belay points, and some lovely chaps to help us into the somewhat interesting, full body harnesses. My team-mate had to quickly overcome his latent fear of self-belaying devices, and we rocked our way through the challenge in short order, heading off north-west on our way to the canoe start at Ross-on Wye.
With 25km of canoeing to do, we knew we had to get to the start as early as we could in order to give us a sporting chance to finish it - and then get to the second special stage halfway through the cycling before it closed down - so we trotted off back into the forest, trying not to think of ‘Ents’.
We made good time (for a slow, and out of practice team) up through 3 check points, and again up . (Up definitely being the operative word at this point.) We hit a trig point and were inevitably overtaken by Team Endorfiends (the eventual winners), who looked like they had just started as we staggered our way down the hill toward the rather delightful castle at Goodrich. Here we were to find check point 18 and the transition to the bikes, our transport to the canoeing.
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