SARUM Orienteering Club sent 23 members to don their headlights and take to the streets of Salisbury for a Wessex Night League event.

A fortunate gap in the rain gave the field of 67 competitors a dry and reasonably warm night out.

Unfortunately for planner Charlotte and organiser Liz, however, a mid-afternoon downpour drenched them when putting out controls in the afternoon.

The start/finish was in Salt Lane car park and runners had to plan their routes around the centre of the city, up to the Arts Centre and into Elizabeth Gardens.

The event was in score format with a total of 500 points available for getting to all 28 controls within the one-hour time limit.

In this format, only odd numbered controls were to be collected before even numbered ones (or vice versa) with only one change over allowed.

A 10-point penalty was applied for each minute taken over the hour. On finishing many runners repaired to local hostelry the hospitable Five Bells for the usual post-run route/errors/complaints discussions – there were very few of the latter category.

Seven competitors achieved the maximum score within the hour with Alan Blanchflower (Wessex) overall winner in 47.11 min, 1.25 min ahead of Sarum’s Dan Cope.

Andy Snell, Dan Gallagher, and Charles Bromley Gardner of Sarum were all in the top 500 point group.

Find out more about orienteering at https://sarumo.org.uk/