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Organisers comments:
I hope you all enjoyed the event - particularly Kevin's courses. I'm sorry that car parking and the trek to and from the start/finish area was so tortuous. We couldn't secure permission to use the track from Canadian War Memorial to the start and so the car parking was always going to be difficult. We know that the Bolderwood car park is busy on dry weekend days. And then, on Friday, we heard that the Long Distance Walkers Association had a checkpoint in the car park. And then, this morning as we arrived, we heard that the Police Cadets were using the car park for 20 or so vehicles. We therefore made an early decision to open the overflow parking.
Most of you seemed to cope with the parking OK and I hope it didn't spoil your experience. One thing that was a surprise to me was how many of you were unaware of the parking issue. We did publicise the issue in Final Details along with a "map" showing the event layout and waht I hope were clear instructions about routes to the start.
Pete Davis
Organiser
Planners comments:
Hope you all enjoyed your courses today and thought the long walk was worth it! In the past we have been allowed to park along the track near the finish but this time permission was not forthcoming.
To make things worse just days before the event we were informed that there was an LDWA event also planning to use the car park and then on the day a large group of Police Cadets also descended on the car park.
At least we got the weather right!
Courses were planned to avoid the worst of the wet areas and the high heather. I also wanted to give everyone a taste of the very runnable open woodland just to the north west of the finish, some tricky navigation at the end of your runs.
The area has dried out considerably in the last week or two and I knew the runability would produce some fast times, but you did have to avoid the marshes and manage your speed through some of the typically vague New Forest terrain.
A big thank you to Paul Fox (Controller) for his sympathetic controlling.
Kevin Bracher (Planner).
