The Annual Rodings Rally

This doesn't really come into the remit of Wanstead Wildlife in any way whatsoever, but as I've been involved with this event for a few years now - and as it is a major reason that I might miss out on local practical work and my local wildlife hunting for quite a few weekends during the summer and into the Autumn, I feel moved to write something!

The weekend of 19th/20th November 2011 saw about 300 people running or struggling about in the depths of Epping Forest, taking part in the 53rd annual Rodings Rally. In addition, scattered around a 12 mile course, were nine tents with two people in each (and one lonely one) as well as a tea-tent run by three people and a group manning High Beech Village Hall.

The rally is an overnight orienteering-type event, with competitors in groups of two to four attempting to visit either five or ten checkpoints in the shortest possible time. The checkpoints of course are the tents, which are usually unlit and hidden within the Forest. Competitors are provided with a 1:20,000 map specially prepared for the event and a clues sheet. The clues relate to the whereabouts of the checkpoints, given as a grid reference.

This event has been organised each year by the Epping Forest Outdoor Group (EFOG), a group which is affiliated to the YHA but nowadays does a wide variety of both outdoor and indoor activities and events. The Group's headquarters is at the ROVSCO scout hut at Snaresbrook, where we meet on Thursday evenings. Activities include walking and cycling, days out, weekends away and holidays in Britain and abroad. We are also quite keen on visiting eating establishments, quizzes and games, or simply socialising!

My involvement with EFOG goes back to the one time that the (late!) Epping Forest Festival was held on Wanstead Flats and I was helping out at a Wren Conservation Group display stall. At the end of the day I got a chance to look at some of the neighbouring displays and discovered EFOG. As this happened to be just a couple of months before the Rodings Rally, having joined the Group I found myself the next weekend with a compass and surveyor's tape getting scratched by bramble and holly, stung by nettles and scraped by branches in trackless parts of Epping Forest far to the north of Wanstead. On the night of the rally itself I resisted the temptation of spending the night in a checkpoint and instead was sleepless in the village hall, from 2pm on Saturday until 9am on Sunday. I've done similar each year since.

To try to bring just a bit of wildlife into this, during the night those of us in the hall (the headquarters and finishing point for the rally) need to visit the tea-tent from time to time as well as put the checkpoints out in the evening and collect them in the morning. This sometimes involves sightings of deer, and this year my experience was a mature stag crossing the road ahead of the car near the church at High Beach. But there is more to the night than wildlife. This year, although the temperatures during the night were relatively mild (about 5C) the stars were brilliant. In the morning, just at daybreak, mists were forming and re-forming throughout the forest, with lovely streamers of sunlight coming through the trees.

I should emphasise that this event has taken place in Epping Forest for years now, with the full permission of the Conservators of Epping Forest and with notice given to the police that it will occur. We put warning notices up alongside roads warning motorists that "hikers" may be present, and we have not had any major incidents involving either competitors, motorists or - indeed - the deer.

For a report on the 2011 Rodings Rally click here

Paul Ferris, 30 November 2011