This morning we woke up bright and early for another busy day of orienteering. After eating and dressing we started on our various chores to get the cabin ready for the 194 pensioners who would be attending the Luffarligan event.
While Nick and Rulsin put out the controls we busied ourselves with sweeping, baking, packing away our bags and setting out the computer equipment. A few attempted the strong pots of coffee later (most of which Paul drank) before our customers began to arrive.
Once Heather and Tristan mastered the registration and Sarah W and Carla were ready in the kitchen the first group (Luan, Dylan, Tinus, Ryno, Carl and myself) started the walk 1.5km walk to the start of the courses which varied from 1.5km to 5.5km in length. This is where we discovered how fast pensioners can really move.
Once we returned and swapped with whoever had the job we wanted the next group (Heather, Sarah W, Carla, Tristan, Cameron, and Tania) set out on their courses.
In the mean time; the kitchen started to get busy (and we learnt many different ways to either convey costs in Swedish or the easier option of telling them we only understand English), and the registration counter got a visit from a very friendly partridge (or Swedish chicken as it is now known) which we named Anderson; who decided it was a good idea to give everyone a fright (aka me and make everyone else laugh) and sit on the banister just a few centimetres from where I was sitting.
As everyone began returning and the boys went out to control collect the girls got the job of cleaning the now filthy clubhouse yet again. Before everyone returned and ate a well deserved lunch.
After lunch and a few games of Uno we set out on the usual bus for the shops to get all of the snacks we now adore including Fanta exotic, chips, loads of Daim, chocolates, ice cream and Mc Donalds, before returning back to the clubhouse to clean up all our things yet again before the club training and meeting that would start in around an hour.
We snacked on our newly bought goodies, played cards and tidied up until the first club members began to arrive. Once almost everyone was here we got our maps and had a quick briefing before heading up the road in the opposite direction to earlier today to the start of the relay style training exercise, where there were many courses and lots of controls to make finding our way just a little bit harder. Sarah W, Luan and I and later on Tristan found ourselves making similar route choices and stayed fairly close together until the final legs where we raced to try get to the finish control first.
Seriously narrow and scary gap between two cliffs
Once checking in with Carl at the finish we took the 1.4km stroll back to the clubhouse where the Swedes -who had done both of the two courses and run back- were showered and waiting for their 10Mila meeting to start. We had a cup of Omo (hot chocolate) and showered quickly before retreating downstairs to chill and play cards.
Once all the club members had left Carla and Sarah W started making macaroni and cheese and made us all even more starving by leaving the oven open to make the whole clubhouse smell of bacon.
We ate the delicious diner and started cleaning up when the real challenge began .... after teaching everyone speed over a few days we had finally taught everyone and a tournament began. We all shared wins, losses and loads of laughs before getting ready for bed after a long day.
Written by Sarah Everett
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