Turf Zone – ArthursSeat
The Edinburgh Roon Turf Mission is a strange beast when you concentrate solely on taking just the zones on the list, not bothering about any other zones you might come across. It almost feels like the zones are in different galaxies, requiring a warp drive and lightspeed to get there, though in reality they are only a few miles apart. I guess we are used to zones only being a few hundreds of meters apart. I was using public transport at the time which might also make the journeys seem slower.
However, back into Edinburgh today for another attempt at starting the mission that is the Edinburgh Roon, 140 zones scattered across Edinburgh and to be taken in alphabetical order. That doesn’t sound too much of an issue at first but then you realise you will be scooting from one side of town to the other, then back again, and again, and again. But I got it right this time. Thank goodness.
You can be sure I was extra careful this time, making sure that I took the first zone, called 1984, properly. It’s next to a small coffee kiosk and I’m sure the lady inside was wondering what I was up to. I even hung about for a few minutes to see that the Edinburgh Roon mission populated. Actually, seeing it happen was quite a relief. Also noticed that the name Fearglas kept changing to fairy glass for some reason. Something to do with auto-translation, I believe.
With ChoccyMuffin having pinched the car to play golf at Aberlady, I had to play the senior citizen today and flash the bus pass, otherwise known as the SaltireCard. Thought it might be interesting to see how the two modes of transport compart for the same set of zones, bike verses bus.
The bus routes were actually quite good so far as getting me close to the intended zones. The No 31 East Craigs took me to the west end of Princess Street, where I caught a No 44 Balerno to near zone 1984. The same No 44 dropped me off a few minutes walk from zone 3DTurf. To reach zone AiliesCairn, located way across town, it was the No 44 Wallyford this time. My next zone was AlbanyZone and again the No 44 left me with 5 minutes walk. Zone Argyle was next but this time a bit of a walk was required to catch the No 9 Kings Buildings which passed through The Meadows and a handy stop left me only minutes from the zone. There were no suitable buses for ArthursSeat, so I had to leg-it.
Yesterday, riding the Brompton G Line gave me 3DTurf, AiliesCairn, AlbanyZone, Argyle and ArthursSeat in close to 2 hours. Today, using public transport, the same set of zones took me around 3 hours, which I thought surprising but probably isn’t. Could probably fine tune the bus journeys better but looks like the bicycle is the way to go. I’m not including zone 1984 for comparison as I didn’t actually take it yesterday.
Good to finish the session on ArthursSeat, this gets an awkward one out of the way and by awkward, I mean if you are riding a bicycle and not keen on locking it up while you tackle the hill on foot. I must admit I’m not keen on leaving any of my bikes locked up anywhere out of my sight. And with the next zone being AstleyAinslie, which is handy for my next session where I’ll be leaving the car near Blackford pond (free parking) as my base.
Today got me off to a start with 6 zones in the bag, leaving only another 134 to go. Only. Wonder what my chances are of catching Cruachan and his 28 zones? Next session will be back on the Brompton G Line again. Back soon.
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