NGOC welcomes you to an Urban orienteering event around the Medieval town of Tewkesbury. We’ll have courses suitable for everyone of all ages, from absolute beginners to experienced orienteers:
- Adult courses (4 lengths to choose from) winding through Tewkesbury’s streets and alleys.
- Two junior courses around the fields of Tewkesbury Nature Reserve.
- A free Mr Men string course for families – follow the string around the hedges and find the Mr Men!
This event is both part of the NGOC League, and of the Southern England Orienteering Urban League (SEOUL). It’s also accessible if you’ve never tried orienteering before, or if you’ve come along to a few of our maprun events: we’ve written a bit of an introduction to this format.
As with all our urban orienteering events, we’ll be using SI in mixed mode: all controls out on the courses will be set up to allow either contactless (SI Air) or traditional ‘dibbing’. Note that the start and finish are not contactless: you still have to ‘dib’ these.
Event timings
The start will be open from 1130 – 1330. Start times are not assigned – just come along to the start when you’re ready.
Courses will close at 1500: make sure you’ve returned to the assembly area and downloaded by then, so that we know you’re safely back.
Entries
Pre-entry is now closed, but there will be plenty of maps for entry on the day, with prices as follows:
- Senior British Orienteering member: £5
- Senior non-member: £6
- Junior: £2
SI cards will be available for hire: free for juniors, £1 for seniors. These are regular SI cards: our complement of SI Air cards has been taken by pre-entrants.
Directions
Assembly will be at the north end of Tewkesbury nature reserve. To avoid encountering oncoming runners, when walking to assembly please approach from the north, along Barton Court, as shown in the map below. There are a number of parking options, all around 700m walk from assembly:
- Station Road Long Stay Car Park, £1 all day.
- Spring Gardens and Rails Meadow Car Parks in town, £2 up to 3 hours / £4 over 3 hours.
- There’s also customer parking at Morrison’s to the north.
The closest toilets are public toilets at Spring Gardens car park (20p), or customer toilets at Morrison’s.
Terrain and map
Junior courses will be contained within Tewkesbury Nature Reserve, consisting mostly of grassy fields with some surfaced paths. All the adult courses venture into the Medieval centre with its narrow alleys, down to the River Avon, and around some modern housing estates.
Note: as it has been wet recently, a section of the Nature Reserve has accumulated water (ankle-deep).
- This mainly affects the orange course: we have replanned the orange course to avoid the worst of this. We will advise runners of the conditions on the day.
- The yellow course may be wet in places but does not visit the worst-affected area.
- Adult routes are unlikely to pass through the worst-affected area.
Tewkesbury is very flat – all courses have little climb.
Map: brand new 1:5000 ISSOM map, drawn 2019 by Tom Cochrane and Tom Birthwright.
Map notes
The town centre has a lot of alleys and courts (there’s even a project devoted to them). Some are public, some are physically accessible but private, and others are behind gates or doors.
- Public alleyways are drawn as a grey canopy with brown path behind: these are accessible routes.
- Private alleyways without a physical barrier are drawn as a grey canopy with olive green behind: do not enter these.
- Alleyways that are visible, but behind locked gates, are shown as a ‘notch’ of grey canopy in the building.
- Alleyways that are behind usually-shut doors are not mapped.
Courses
Two junior courses and four senior courses are available. Since the senior courses cross streets with busy traffic, under-16s wishing to run them must be accompanied by an adult.
Each course is listed below with a set of age categories: if you would like to earn points toward the Southern England Orienteering Urban League (SEOUL), you must enter the course matching your age category (or a longer course). If you don’t mind about SEOUL points, you can enter any course you wish.
Final course lengths are below. These are the shortest running distances (as opposed to straight-line distances). Note that the Orange course has been slightly adjusted from earlier versions of the details, to avoid flooding.
| Course | SEOUL categories | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Brown | MO MV WO | 8.5km (18 controls) |
| Blue | MSV WV | 7.1km (16 controls) |
| Green | MUV WSV | 5.0km (12 controls) |
| Short Green | MHV WUV WHV | 3.7km (11 controls) |
| Orange | MJ WJ | 3.4km (8 controls) |
| Yellow | MYJ WYJ | 2.6km (8 controls) |
Here the age categories are:
- Young Juniors (12-)
- Junior (16-)
- Open
- Veteran (40+)
- SuperVet (55+)
- UltraVet (65+)
- HyperVet (75+)
Safety
- Adult courses encounter traffic and narrow alleyways: take care.
- Junior courses may pass through the nature reserve car park: cars will be travelling slowly here, but take care.
- There may be cattle and sheep on the nature reserve: they are docile and will generally ignore people, but avoid approaching them and close any gates.
- Depending on the weather in the run-up to the event, parts of the nature reserve may be wet underfoot.
- The streams running through the nature reserve are mapped as uncrossable: please do not try to cross except via bridges.
Facilities
The NGOC cafe tent will be present, with tea/coffee and a cake for 50p as you discuss your run.
Event officials
Organiser/planner: Tom Cochrane
Controller: Clive Caffall
Thanks
Many thanks to Tewkesbury Nature Reserve for allowing us to use their fields.