Turf zone – HolyStMatthew
Having posted previously a few thoughts about three of the many medals that can be gained while turfing, namely, Bridge Fanatic, Bridge Lover and Bridge Crosser, there was also another medal that caught my eye, Orderly III, granted for taking a bridge zone, then a holy zone and finally a monument zone, all within 20 minutes and in that order, hence the title. This looked like an interesting challenge, so I decided to do some advance planning and see if there were any zones locally where I could attempt to gain this medal.
My first task was to locate suitable zones. This was again done using TurfWiki. If you look up each relevant zone type, there’s a link to a map showing all the zones of that type. You do not seem to be able to view more than one zone type at a time which would have been useful. Mind you, it may already do that but my grasp of Swedish is zero. This allowed me to see that there was in fact three such zones not too far from home, located between Roslin and Loanhead. The zones were BilstonGlen (bridge zone), RosslynChapel (holy zone) and RoslinBattle (monument zone) The zones are along the Roslin to Loanhead cycleway and easily accessible.
Having located three likely zones, the first question to answer was could they be taken within the 20 minutes allocated time frame? They also had to be taken in the correct order – first bridge, then holy, and finally monument – and these were not physically in that order. There is also a note that no other zones can be taken in between.
So, I would need to start at BilstonGlen (bridge zone), easy enough. Then I need to get to RosslynChapel (holy zone) and the only feasible route is past RoslinBattle (monument zone) but that would possibly mean taking that zone on the passing. However, the zone does appear to be slightly to the side of the road so cycling on the road may not trigger the GPS. Online maps also show a possible short detour around some houses avoiding this zone. I can then bash on and take RosslynChapel (holy zone) then return to take RoslinBattle (monument zone).
The overall distance is about 2 miles and the route is fairly straight and mostly flat, so should be easy enough on the bicycle. Now all I need to do now is wait until the final ice patches melt and some dry weather. 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!
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