Having gone to sleep before midnight, and spent most of yesterday in the car, I was not particularly surprised to wake at 05:00 with sore hips. So I got up, waked over to the nearby toilet and shower building to pee, and on the way back to the room got a quick hug from Torunn, who was on her way to bed (Keldor had come to bed around 02:30) .
I did a quick 10 minutes pilates session, went back to sleep for 45 minutes, woke again and updated my journal for yesterday before trying for another nap at 07:00. I soon realised I wasn’t going to sleep again, so I got up, took a quick shower and helped the kitchen with a little breakfast prep.
After a leisurely breakfast and chatting it was finally time to put on warm clothes and get ready for the 3D archery hunting trail. Dressed and ready we reported for pre-hunt “listen up” at 10:00. My that took way longer than they do for entertering Crown Tournament, or before a War. Too long, didn’t listen.
Eventually we set out for the hunt. There were lots of groups, and 20 different stations. Our group started at station number 7, where we had a duck, two orher birds. Since the contest waa set to start at exactly 11:05, and we were in place a couple of minutes before 11:00, we took the time to shoot a practice arrow or three, with the happy result that I actually hit one of the targets at that station after we started shooting for real.
For each station there were three targets (or, sometimes, one large one), and three red stakes in the ground next to which we had to stand, with one foot up against the stake, and no feet in front of it, so that everyone had the same shooting distance.
To make it easy on us we did every station in the same order. I started with target number three, Keldor with target number two, Holmfrid with target number one, and Torunn waited till we had all shot. Then she rotated in to target number one, I stepped asside to wait my turn at that target, and the others moved to the next target in the sequence. Once we all four had shot at each target we moved on to the next station.
We could shoot up to two arrows at each target, but if we hit with the first one we didn’t shoot with the next (and one gets more points for hitting with the first tham the second). The targets included:
- my first target of the day was a rubber duck, which I managed to hit behind the eye. We were supposed to aim for the body, but who’s counting?
- a large pink elephant, wearing a black bowler hat (I can hit the broadside of an elephant)
- some large plastic leeks (these were hard, but I managed to entangle one of my arrows in the floppy leafy bits at the top, so it counted)
- a large plastic boar (my only shot thst hit it was directly in its ear)
- a parrot hangong from a very tall pole (one of my arrows ruffled its tail feathers in passing, which is zero points, but still pleased me. Clara hit that one twice)
- a plastic beaver, standing on its hind legs begging (I managed to hit that one i the middle of its target zone with my first arrow!)
- a car,the only targets of which were the tires We made it more than halfway through the course by time for the lunch break (the vegetarian option was yummy broccli and cheese stuffed bread rolls. I ate what was probablymore than my fair share of them).
After lunch we finished up the rest of the trail, but I wish I had remembered to bring a glove, or anything to protect my fingers, which were getting sore after drawing the bow string so often.
The evening feast we wound up with a very good table, at which the conversation flowed easily all night, and I really enjoyed the company. Clara sat at a nearby table with at least 10 people under 20 years of age, and it makes me happy to see so many. She tells me they are planning to do a youth-run event in February.
