Going nowhere fast and with purpose

I don't know my left from my right.  I get them confused on a regular basis.  This is a well known fact amongst my family.  I was designated driver a few years ago on a travelling supper that I attended with Ross, my sister and brother in law.  We had managed to find our way from home to the venue for the starter, it was from the starter to the main course venue that things went a bit awry. My sister told me that we needed to turn left at the junction.

"Okay," I said and put on my indicator, confidently pulling out into the traffic. 
"Er Emma," Ross said, "We need to go left."
"I know," I said somewhat testily, "That is what I am doing."
"Why  have you pulled into the right hand lane then?"
Dumb silence.

This is a long term problem.  There are many pictures in my parents photo albums of us all when I was a child, my family moving one way and me purposely going in the completely opposite direction. 

What, you may ask, has this got to do with training for adventure racing?  Quite a lot really. There is  a certain amount of irony that I have taken up a sport that requires me to be able to navigate.

And, if I am bad at it now, after many lessons, you can only imagine the woeful nature of my skill level 3 years ago.

My first difficulty arises with the compass.  I have two.  A little basic one and a sighting compass which I inherited from my uncle last year. I was truly thrilled with this inheritance but unfortunately, it hasn't magically endowed me with an innate sense of direction and a new level of navigational skills.  Ross took me out and taught me how to sight a landmark and walk towards it. I managed that quite well and love doing it but there is a problem though...I seem to be a bit magnetic... The compass needle seems to get a bit distracted by me if I hold it too close to my body...

So now, I have solved that problem by holding it out far in front of me.  I walk about with my arm held stiffly in front of me and squint at the little dial so that I can follow the needle which will then, hopefully, settle firmly into position.

But that is not all.  I have a very firm grounding in the theory of topographical maps being a former geography student.  I can do all sorts of things with the maps;  I can plot a route, draw a cross section of the contours, measure distances and I understand exactly how to read the map features, on the map.

The problem comes when I have to use the map along with a compass in the real world and have to do this quickly while moving along... It is these circumstances that I have,  um...limited success.  (It's amazing I have actually done two races,  requiring navigation, on my own and come back home.)

Sometimes it isn't even really the map and the compass that is the problem, sometimes it is just my innate ability to get lost....

I have lived in my current house for nearly 10 years, I have been training in the woods near my house for  at least three years. I know the individual trees, I recognise bumps and puddles and rocks as old familiar land marks.  But, even this hasn't protected me from my own lack of a sense of direction.

On Saturday morning, I went out for a quick hike practice session before kayaking.  I was quite proud of the fact that I didn't choose an easy flat route.  No, I set myself the challenge of tackling some hills in the woods near Deep Cut Barracks alongside the Basingstoke Canal.  One of the sets of hills we 'affectionately' call the Three Peaks of Porridge Pot.  Porridge Pot is a particularly nasty little hill, steep, sharp and gravelly.  Eeeuuuw!   My plan was to walk steadily up passed our local golf course, through a housing estate and then up to the hills and along to the water tower.  This is a route I have done several times and I have been to the water tower hundreds of times by a different route.  I am ashamed to say....I got lost.  Yes,  I toiled up the hills, powering my way without stopping but could I find that water tower?  No, I could not.  Where had it gone?  It was there on Wednesday, when I approached it from the other side.

I made the decision that navigators often make when they can't find their landmark,  I soldiered on regardless, going nowhere fast and with purpose.  I walked on in the vain hope that the water tower would magically appear before my eyes at any moment.  I walked with focus, head down, striding out literally into the unknown.  I didn't recognise a single tree or feature.  I was thoroughly lost. I kept on walking regardless,  as optimistic as ever.

Fortunately, I eventually came to a fence line I recognised.  This fence line meant gravel hills with sharp descents and steep climbs.  I didn't care... I knew where I was and that I was heading in the right direction. I followed it out and found my way home. I felt like the wanderer returning from the wilderness although I wasn't greeted like it, I don't think anyone really knew I was gone or that I was lost.

At least I kept up a cracking walking pace the whole time, I averaged 5.94km per hour.  That made me happy.  So at least I was going nowhere fast!

But I do think it is a good thing my job on this team is to be the mandatory female and not to navigate otherwise we might end up in Wales!