Solway Orienteers have been taking part in a number of competitions over the past few weeks

Solway Orienteers have been busy both at home and away during October.

Early in the month, a group competed in the South Scotland League races at Kilmarnock. Derek Kennedy and Ian Turner chose the blue course resulting in a close finish, returning 18th and 19th places respectively. Helen O’Donoghue ran short green resulting in a ninth place overall.

Dave McQuillen has been furthest travelled, first heading south to take on a Border Liners event at Milton Rigg. It provided an intricate navigational challenge and he was content with a 23rd place on green. Last weekend Dave travelled north to Inverness-shire for a double-header in conjunction with the Junior Inter-Area competition. The Saturday event was at Keppernach and his result was 25th on the green course. Sunday saw the action move to Alvie and Dave chose short green and was content with a 15th place, returning a few places higher than daughter Alison.

Last Saturday also saw Solway’s races at Cally Wood, Gatehouse, the club’s local monthly winter competition, with a turn out of around 40 runners on a bright day perfect for running in a wood full of autumn colours.

Calum Morrison was the winner of the short/yellow standard course, followed by Isaac Miller, Ethan Miller and Noah Miller who all finished within a couple of minutes of each other. Fastest round the medium/orange-light green standard was Linda Biggar, just a minute faster than Ellie Reid with Keira Tedd a very good third runner back. The long/green standard course winner was Richard Colbeck with Briony Kincaid in second place and an ever-improving Ally Gourlay third, all fairly close in time.

Now the darkness is falling earlier, the club will resume midweek night navigation by torchlight, the first of these