From the car park, Gary led us to the official start spot. (I think he was leading us away from Tx B which was very close to the car area.) Good signals were heard from all minis at the start. I waited to here all five minis before setting off, roughly plotting them by hand, and I only left the start when Tx Y came on. My plots showed all but one minis to be clustered at around 60° although F & G were perhaps a bit further north than the rest. 

My joker was Y and the Y transmitter was distinctly NW whereas all others were NE. I headed off across the road and soon found the long hedgerow where Y was located. I was soon there but still needed two more transmissions before closing in on it. Of course Z would need to be close by. So retuned, initially expecting Z to be in one of two hedgerows. Rosie was also looking for it (Z was her joker). We both homed-in on a well-nettled area on the banks of the river. It had to be in the nettle bed or at one of the large oak trees there. Rosie found it without letting on. I blundered around as she purposely stood in from of the dangling aerial wire. On seeing her leave the site furtively the penny dropped and I returned for a proper look. 

Having bagged Z, I needed to join the masses who, by now, must be rapidly finding the amassed set of transmitters off to the NE. With the odds against me I decided to head north and to approach the target area from a different direction to most. The hope was to go against the flow and hence pick up some extra points. Headed for F first - a long way but found quickly amongst some newly planted trees and switched to finding G. I and J were also somewhere in that area so went to them next.

Transmitter R seemed to be back towards the river so headed south and found a path running parallel with the river. I headed west along this path.

To my left was a sea of nettles. Philip was just ahead of me and must have been looking for the same transmitter. However he failed to notice a slightly trodden down “path” which looked suspicious. It eventually led to another big tree not far from the river and sure enough there was a Triffid – so I found that one without a transmission.

 Mini S had to be somewhere near so back on to the path and headed west again. Further along, the path bore left and there was a trodden down area straight on- so I had to explore it. It led me straight to a plastic box in a plastic bag with wire coming out of it. I just spotted it before it came on and wrapped the S-meter needle around the end-stop. I switched off the set and put it down. Where’s the triffid? This was a tough one to find. I was expecting it to be among the high nettles but it was eventually found out in the open just covered by a few large leaves.

 Now I only had A and B to find. Both seemed weak from Tx S but they couldn’t be far away as I was near to completing the round trip back to the car park. Perhaps my DF set batteries were failing but A seemed weak and I was doubting if A was actually transmitting so went for B first. The B station has long transmissions and one such transmission nearly took me to the car parking lay-by before going off. I actually overshot and took the road to the south. When the transmitter came back on I did an about turn and then back across the road bridge. I followed the river bank and saw a swarm of bees. They eventually moved on but I’m sure they were marking where the “B” station was!  So found that one and then headed back, across the fields towards station A.

 Now, there was 4-layer barbed-wire fence near station A and although both sides were freely accessible a decision had to be taken. Was it in the field or in the wooded area accessed from the footpath? Since I was already in the field I opted to try there first and came across a large fallen tree. Saw Philip in said tree and followed a, by now, well-trodden path to the transmitter and triffid. Hunt over. Ah, and there was water there – thanks Gary!

 Gary always reminds me that I do well at his events. Strange but true. Anyway, this was a splendid site. A nice countryside location with a mix of terrain types which makes a change from woodland-only sites. It was also a very convenient site for a Cricketers rendezvous for a welcome pint. Well-done Gary.