Your mission, Turfer, should you choose to accept it is, either take, in strict alphabetical order, 140 zones widely scattered across Edinburgh or take 211 zones along the length of the canal between Edinburgh and the Bowling, near Glasgow, the zones being taken in order, starting in the west or in the east. As always, should you be caught or blocked, the Turf Crew will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This media will self-destruct in ten seconds. Good luck, Turfer.
Yes, thanks to the sterling efforts of our very own turfer Féarglas, Scotland now has no less than three FRUT Missions to entertain us, frustrate us and generally present us with some very interesting challenges, should we choose to accept them. Details as follows:
Mission #70 – Edinburgh Roon – 140 selected zones to be taken in alphabetical order. Overall time and distance unknown but probably considerable.
Mission #71 – Canal Quest 754 Westbound – 211 zones to be taken in listed order from zone LochrinBasin in Edinburgh to zone Stuck at Bowling, west of Glasgow. Overall distance approx. 65 miles.
Mission #72 – Canal Quest 754 Eastbound – 211 zones to be taken in order from zone Stuck in Bowling, west of Glasgow to zone LochrinBasin in Edinburgh. Distance as above.
The missions are listed on the FRUT website, under Turf Missions, and everything works automatically with no need to register or sign up to participate. Just go out, take your first listed zone and you will appear in the listing, your progress updating as you work your way through the required zones. It’s also worth reading the How to Play? notes before you get started. You may notice there are also medals on offer for finishing the missions. First gets Gold medal, second gets the Silver medal and third gets the Bronze medal. Everyone else gets a Finisher medal.
Mission #70 – Edinburgh Roon looks like the first mission I’ll be tempted with and if you are wondering, as I did, what Roon means, it’s an alternative Scots word for a round. Most of the 140 zones are well-spread across an area approx. 2.50 miles (4.10 km) east to west by 2.30 miles (3.70 km) north to south, encompassing just under 6.00 square miles (15.10 sq. km), so not too large an area to cover. That is, with the annoying exception of the isolated second zone, 3Dturf, which is good mile or more out west.
The mission is fairly simple, start at the first listed zone, 1984, then take the next listed zone, 3dTurf, and so on until you have taken all 140 zones in the correct order. As to strategy, with quite a lot of ground to cover between zones, a bicycle would be useful, though zone ArthursSeat might offer an interesting challenge on a bike. One point, you can take zones between the listed zones but be careful you do not block yourself for later, otherwise you will have to wait until you can do a revisit (23-hours away) or someone else clears the zone. Assists are also permitted.
The two Canal Quest 754 missions are another kettle of fish entirely and while each zone must be taken in order, both routes are completely linear, i.e. you start at one end and finish at the other. On the plus side these are canals paths so about as level as you can get, though there might be a few small ups and down along the way. One thing about canal routes is they can be very exposed and with our prevailing weather from the west, attempting Canal Quest 754 Westbound could be very hard work indeed if you pick the wrong weather days.
The main issue with these long lineal routes is the transport logistics. While the entire route is about 65 miles long, easily cycled if you are reasonably fit or well prepared beforehand, you need to add in travel time either getting to the start point or returning home from the finish point, or visa-versa. Thankfully, the route is generally well serviced with railways and the road network. Of course, there is always the option of picking off shorter sections over a multiple days or weeks.
Even at these early days I cannot help think of further missions. Two come to mind. The first is a circuit of Edinburgh, linking all the zones along the outer boundary of the city. The other is to follow a route around the Firth of Forth, crossing at the Forth Road Bridge and crossing back across at Kincardine Bridge, though we might need to make a special request for a few additional zones to fill the gaps. Bye for now.
Copyright ©2025 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
