This area is one of Scotland’s hidden gems. If it were located near Pitlochry you would not be able to move with the crowds. We must be a serious contender for "O car park of the year". One always worries about weather on such an open area and while Saturday’s heavy shower in the middle of the event added to the challenge, Sunday’s competitors experienced dry and mist free conditions. The earlier than normal staging of the Scottish Score Champs was due to the access agreement with the primary landowner which excludes orienteering in November/December.

Special thanks to Brian Meechan for supplying the mapper with endless cups of coffee and fruit scones for the previous three months and of course for the facilities of the Café / Toilets and surroundings to make the Assembly area so compact.

It was good to see so many juniors at the event particularly Cumbrian Schools who made the journey to compete with our young West Area Team. The very young were treated to a String Course of mythical creatures by the Cherry Family.

On behalf of Ayrshire OC we would like to thank you all for supporting our two days of orienteering at Loch Doon.

Brigid & Pat Flanagan

The Scottish Score is a special one off event. The only major annual score event in the calendar and you either love it or loath it.

The extra challenges provided by the added choices when compared to a cross-country event certainly bring out the best in some competitors.

The area used this year provided a variety of options, with competitors required to make choices involving distance, climb and control difficulty.

I must confess I am still surprised at how many competitors took on the 3 controls to the west of the area. I spoke to a few afterwards and there were a variety of reasons given. Others immediately discarded this option and tried to collect as many of the other points available as possible.

The area was especially challenging for the juniors and I feel they did well to successfully plan and visit their controls.

An excellent new area deserved a better turn out and after all, Ayrshire is no more remote than most orienteering areas.

Most competitors seemed to enjoy their run although there were obvious comments about the toughness of the underfoot conditions. The planner tried – and succeeded – in keeping this to a minimum.

The one course that caused some concern was the JM/W3/Orange. Two legs in particular stood out. The first was 115-116 where competitors had to navigate across the hillside to knolls with a wall as the catching feature. Having rechecked the guidelines I feel that this was within the scope of TD3. The second leg was 119-120. This seems to have caused the juniors less of a problem but ironically was the leg that fell beyond the TD3 guidelines as no catching feature was available. This was an oversight and something to be avoided in future.

Finally a big thank you to everyone who helped to make this major weekend a great success:

To the Planners: Bob, Phil and Dougie;

Organiser: Brigid Flanagan;

Mapper/Condes/SI: Pat Flanagan

And to all the other AYROC members who helped with starts, finishes, control collection, car parking, download, etc and to Robin Strain the SOA’s SI guru.

Blair Young

'' Loch Doon was a great area on which to plan a Score event because of the opportunity to give most competitors a classic choice at the start between a few remote high scoring controls and many more low scoring ones. I was pleased that some decided to come back down the road and across the dam from the start on courses 1 and 2. I had thought that this was probably the optimum route. On the other hand.................''

Bob Cherry

1 ESOC O top size 6 (call 07789 425284)

Mr. Gavin Craigengillan Estates

Mr. Gibson Craigengillan House

Mr. A. Moffatt Eriff Estates

Mr. B. Meechan Round House Café

Cumnock and District First Aid Personnel.