This year’s Portugal O Meeting is based near Portel, in the South East of Portugal. Regulars @RosieW and @andyr are kindly tolerating myself and @Pete - newbies on the international orienteering scene.
Before the event starts properly, there is a model event. This is a chance to get out into the terrain to practice without any time pressures.
The terrain has plenty of contour detail, but with patchy trees and vegetation reducing visibility. The white areas are fairly arbitrary but some of the bigger open areas are more obvious. There are rocks everywhere - some mapped and some not. No-one I spoke to could work out the difference between a distinctive tree and a normal tree.
Overall I enjoyed the terrain - once you ignore the extra detail, the contours and significant rocks mostly give enough information to navigate. It will be important to keep pace counting, and losing contact with the map may be problematic, but currently I am feeling fairly positive.
The first day is a middle distance event.
