2012 Round Britain Rally
Since this was my first year of trying this rally, I didn’t have any expectations about what sort of award I wanted to aim for. I’d simply pick off locations en-route to the various rallies, with maybe the odd trip nearer home and see what that got me.
I received the list of locations in March and set about finding where they all were. It took quite a while, and there was one that I just couldn’t find. The Jack Anderson Memorial Stone was proving to be one search too far. No worries, I was going for the 100% award anyway. The highlighted rows in the landmark table, are the ones that I visited.
Since this was my first year of trying this rally, I didn’t have any expectations about what sort of award I wanted to aim for. I’d simply pick off locations en-route to the various rallies, with maybe the odd trip nearer home and see what that got me.
I received the list of locations in March and set about finding where they all were. It took quite a while, and there was one that I just couldn’t find. The Jack Anderson Memorial Stone was proving to be one search too far. No worries, I was going for the 100% award anyway. The highlighted rows in the landmark table, are the ones that I visited.
By the end of October, when the rally closes, I’d managed to visit 28 locations for a total of 625 points. I wasn’t sure about 1 location, Child of Hale. When researching the location I found reference to a carved tree opposite a church. However, when I got there, there was nothing but a gap where it used to be! I thought I’d photograph it anyway, and see if others identified the same landmark, in which case I’d still get the points. As it turned out, I did, so all was well.
I even managed to find one of the landmarks that I couldn’t identify at the beginning. Whilst on the Welsh Rally, I visited a graveyard in Montgomery for the Robber’s Grave landmark. As I pulled up, I noticed another motorbike parked there. It belonged to another entrant of the Round Britain Rally and we had a quick chat. He asked how I was getting on and I told him that I’d at least identified all of the landmarks except one. He had a great deal of difficulty in finding it too and had eventually resorted to phoning up the parish priest! In the spirit of the rally, he didn’t want to give me too much detail, but said that it was 50 yards away from a Northumberland location in this year’s IBA Ireland Two Wheel Poker Rally. That was enough for me to find it, since I’d entered that rally as well, and as you can see from the photo, it’s not exactly easy to spot!
In the end, I achieved a Bronze award, a good start and something to build on for next year. My photos from the rally can all be seen on my photobucket page.
I even managed to find one of the landmarks that I couldn’t identify at the beginning. Whilst on the Welsh Rally, I visited a graveyard in Montgomery for the Robber’s Grave landmark. As I pulled up, I noticed another motorbike parked there. It belonged to another entrant of the Round Britain Rally and we had a quick chat. He asked how I was getting on and I told him that I’d at least identified all of the landmarks except one. He had a great deal of difficulty in finding it too and had eventually resorted to phoning up the parish priest! In the spirit of the rally, he didn’t want to give me too much detail, but said that it was 50 yards away from a Northumberland location in this year’s IBA Ireland Two Wheel Poker Rally. That was enough for me to find it, since I’d entered that rally as well, and as you can see from the photo, it’s not exactly easy to spot!
In the end, I achieved a Bronze award, a good start and something to build on for next year. My photos from the rally can all be seen on my photobucket page.