Last week the Currie family headed to the Julian Alps for the annual OOCup 5 day orienteering competition spread across a mixture of Italian and Slovenian areas. The terrain was a varied mix of rocky slopes, alpine plains, and fast runnable forest all combining to create an excellent week of orienteering. The exposure to new areas and maps, completely different from anything in the UK and especially the New Forest, has definitely helped improve skills in technical areas, and physically too over often steep and rocky ground at altitude. 

The atmosphere in the arenas and the forest was great with a seemingly more collaborative approach to orienteering applying. There was always a chorus of control codes echoing through the forest and the map was sometimes snatched away as you were asked to explain where you were. 

This help was particularly useful on Day 4 of the event which was set in a very rocky, vertiginous area (map extract below) with seemingly more black on the map than white. I must admit not many of the Brits did particularly well on this day.

Outside of the orienteering, the mountain setting and numerous lakes, bars, restaurants and activities provided a memorable holiday and a chance to relax after a (sometimes too long) day in the forest.

The next OOCup is in Ireland! And the areas around Killarney national park look like they should make another great event.

Duncan Currie

Maps: Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5