Another wet and miserable night greeted a hardy bunch of souls for the second round of the HALO night league. Noddle Hill Nature Reserve has a complex network of paths, together with large areas of rough open and lots of hawthorn thickets. Some of the rough open areas are inhabited with dense brambles and staying near to paths is the best option. Mary had sited the 20 controls on or close to paths, with only a couple of tricky ones, so everyone had chance to get to them all, although choosing the best route was not an easy task, as Mary had chosen the locations well.
Dean and David did manage to get all 20, Carl would have too, if first his watch battery hadn't failed, then his head torch battery (moral of the story? always carry a . . . . )Carl had 18 controls after only 24 minutes. Paul got 19, Patricia would have got more if not rendered blind by the rain for an 18 minute period. And another good run by James - if only he had understood the rules last week!
I also got 20, but as I had put 10 of them out and checked that the other 10 were in the right place, it seemed unfair to class myself as competitive. Interestingly I was the only one to do the evens first.
Thanks to Mary for planning and to Paul, me and David for collecting them all back in in the driving rain.