Spunchmeisters Andy & Mark operating from the Bolly Brewery Tap room in town.
Bike Spunch teams El Pres & Pete, Croxy & Phil M, PTD & Smithy, Dunc & Stunt.
Normal Spunch Ginny, Jane & Ruth
Pub: G & Lee, Mawds & Simon
Route: 2 Hours to get as many 20 point controls as possible from 50 scattered between the edge of town, teggs, the forest and langley/sutton.
Conditions: Cool and dry.
Notes:
With mid-week urban spunching visiting Macc on a Thursday, El Pud generously pud on a TNR Bike Spunch special as a side quest which was much appreciated!
HQ for the night is the recently relocated Bolly Brewery tap room not too far from the Warf pub. A former bakery its roomy with urban post industrial chic, and food provided by a pop up pizza team.
We are issued the maps on arrival – so have some time to work out route strategies whilst getting the maprun tech to work on relevant devices (the iphone quite beep is still a thing it seems!).
By 6:45 ish it’s off to the start and away we go into the night.
The controls have plenty of “traps” designed to catch out those who have not examined the map in detail, so just because there seem to be a lot in one area, doesn’t mean they are all easy/simple to get!!
Fast forward two hours and all four teams are back within the cutoff, and the debriefing begins over some fine bolly ale (Eastern Nights for the first pint).
Discussion points – the control on the corner of Langley reservoir – was actually on the road not the path round the ressie to the steps…but you could get it by going right to the edge of the grass bank. Teggs controls were sneaky and involved some doubling back and extra climb, and the lanes out the back of Langley were also steeper than you think!
El Pres cried foul having observed Croxy & Troll going the wrong way down a one way street (Barracks lane!). Whispers of an off from Pete, and celebration from Team Tythy for beating the E team (and everyone else)
No badgers reported this week, although the weed smoking youth in the car at the bottom of the white rabbit ascent seemed to be worried about bears!?
results:
Team Tythy 30 Controls 600 points 18 seconds to spare.
E Smiths 28 Controls 560 points 11 mins to spare
Croxy & Phil 26 Controls 520 points 2 mins 37 seconds to spare
Pete & Chris 23 Controls 460 points 8 mins to spare.
The Wag spunchers had enjoyed their urban adventure too, we get to catch up with Mawds and Simon and others from the various venn diagrams of social circles and Spunch.
Lee and G also arrive bemoaning other committments that have prevented them from participating in the Spunch fun.
Phil the barman is now in charge of the Tap room – so friendly faces all round 🙂
Pizza’s from the van were excellent, as was the choice of beer – all the standard Bolly brews at the bar, plus twelve guest taps at the back. The Four Eels london porter was decent, but winner of the weirdest brew was the Estonian Dark Lager – looks like stout, but tastes like a proper euro lager with flavour.
El Pres gets us a rather good blended whisky in at last orders to finish off an excellent evening.
There will be some tired legs in the morning…