Turf zone – HopeBridge
Not long after you start turfing, the lure of medals starts to niggle at the back of your mind, tempting you away for the sometimes all-consuming activity of taking those zones. And the first one that caught my eye, or rather three, were the bridge medals:
- Bridge Fanatic – awarded for taking at least 3 bridge zones in 10 minutes.
- Bridge Lover – awarded for taking at least 3 bridge zones in 20 minutes.
- Bridge Crosser – awarded for taking at least 3 bridge zones in 30 minutes.
Okay, seems fairly straight forward enough. Find at least three bridge zones and take them within the allotted time frame. However, what exactly is a bridge zone? It is any zone associated with a bridge or must it have that bridge type symbol tagged to it? A quick question on the Turf forum provided the answer. It must have the bridge zone symbol.
With that sorted, the next task was to actually locate those zones with the bridge zone symbol. This was easy enough. I popped onto the TurfWiki and located the page about bridge zones. Beside the words “United Kingdom” there’s a number that links to a page displaying all the bridge zones in the UK. I was then able to zoom in and locate the bridge zones in my own local area.
I did not have to search far to locate three bridge ones, in fact, two of them are only minutes from the front door of the house, along the Pittendriech Burn. These are Pittendriech and Brixwold. The third bridge zone to complete the trio, is HopeBridge, located on the outskirts of Bonnyrigg, less than 2 miles away. These appeared to be my best option but as a fall back I also located a couple of additional likely areas, the River Esk in Musselburgh, and also in Edinburgh.
Having located three suitable bridge zones, which of the medals above could I achieve? Well, Bridge Crosser, with 30 minutes’ time, did not require much thought. That would be easy enough on a bicycle. In fact, I could probably do that on foot. Bridge Lover, with 20 minutes, needed a little more thinking. Let’s say cycling at 15 mph would cover the 1.70 miles in about 6 minutes. Add a minute for taking each zone and I’m still well within the 20 minutes allowed. I reckon this would be a good challenge using my Swifty Air kick scooter which is slower than cycling.
Now, the last one, Bridge Fanatic, with only 10 minutes to play with. It would have to be on the bicycle. If I deduct 3 minutes for taking the zones (my takeover time is actually under 30 seconds but I’m adding some allowance) that leaves 7 minutes to cycle the distance. A quick calculation shows I’ll need an average speed of 15 mph and the route is downhill all the way, so that should be easy enough. Could be quite tight but a nice challenge.
So, here’s the plan. I’ll start with Bridge Crosser and attempt that on foot. Next, I’ll try Bridge Lover, this time on the Swifty Air kick scooter and finally, Bridge Fanatic, will be using the bicycle. Now all I need to do now is wait until the snow and ice clears, some dry weather (this is for safety, as I’ll likely be fairly tanking it downhill) and some free time.
In the meantime, I wanted to share this here for anyone who is interested in trying those medals for themselves. I’ll be posted on Planet Gary in due course and let you know how I get on. Keep on turfing!
Update 19-01-21
A cycle trip to Musselburgh found me inadvertently gaining all three bridge medals. Turf blog entry here. However, that’s not to say I won’t give the above ideas a try anyway as all three bridges are in my backyard, so to speak. The medals can only be awarded once but I think I still want to see if my plans would work. Seems a shame not to.
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