What a superb evening over at Balmedie – a couple of very clever 50-themed courses followed by a meal at the White Lion and a very entertaining talk by Chris Aust, one of the club’s founding members, summarising the first ten years of the club’s activities and events including some cracking photos from the good old days of hand-drawn maps, pin punches, some dodgy looking sports gear and oh-so-70/80’s hairdos and ‘taches!
Results – https://www.sportident.co.uk/results/GRAMP/2026/SSBalmedie
Routegadget – https://www.gramp.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#354 (Long and Yellow)
https://www.gramp.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#356&course=1 (Score)
Can anyone beat Phil Campbell’s Strava plot for the Long course to trace out 50?
And did anyone else spot the notice on the long ridge between 190 and 191 warning about “Invasive species control”. Could it possibly be referring to the lesser spotted Itinerum Peritus Grampus?
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 
I read this article recently https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/10/humans-prefer-to-walk-anticlockwise-scientists-find-reason-unclear.The layout of the controls for the Score course lent themselves to a big loop either clockwise or anticlockwise. “Hmmmm. I wonder…?” So I looked at the splits and was discovered that of the 15 people who did it 47% went anticlockwise, i.e. far less than expected. What does that say about orienteers?
(For the pedants reading this, yes, I know: small sample size and not as free-style as the informal studies mentioned in the article.)