Turf Zone – Newtongrange
On Planet Gary there are two unofficial turf medals, the 2 in 1 and the 3 in 1, where you would try to take either two zones or three zones in less than one minute or 60 seconds. Now, I’ve managed the 2 in 1 easy enough using two zones in Newtongrange, namely Newtongrange and WhyMurderDean but I’ve never tried the 3 in 1 medal. So, while I was going to be turfing Newtongrange anyway, I thought I’d give it a try. Mission impossible, I would suspect.
The big issue here is finding three zones close enough together for the challenge. I did consider travelling down to Milton Keynes where there are four zones ideally situated on a roundabout, the zones being only 60m apart, but that would be plain silly. Six hours and four changes of train is not attractive. Might be different if the medals were official Turf medals but alas, they are not. But fingers crossed, perhaps one day they might be. Hint, hint.
Scouring the turf maps online I failed to find anything better within reasonable travel distance than the two mentioned zones above in Newtongrange. Here, the next nearest zone is MatthewJenks, about 270 m away, which I suspect, is way too far a distance to cover within the total 60 seconds available, but worth a try. It’s all I’ve got at the moment. Of the 60 seconds available, 2 x 14 seconds (14 = 19 seconds less 5 second GPS bonus) is take time, leaving only 32 seconds travel time between zones.
Starting zone was Newtongrange, at the train station, and the 60 second countdown would start immediately after the zone was taken, at 13:13:11. The next zone, WhyMurderDean, is only 55 m away, so should only takes a few seconds to get there on the bike. That was registered as taken a rather surprising 36 seconds later at 13:13:47. Now, about 14 seconds of that is take time, leaving 22 seconds as the travel time between the two zones and to me that seems far too long for only 55 m. Me thinks something is amiss here. I did use the take time to cycle down the switchback path at zone WhyMurderDean so perhaps that had something to do with it as I kept leaving and entering the zone. I was also having issues earlier connecting to the server, so perhaps that might also be a factor.
The third and final zone, MatthewJenks, was taken at 13:14:46 which is obviously outside the allowed 60 seconds by a good 35 seconds. I thought I’d made good time cycling furiously along the path and was lucky not to have to stop at the road crossing, but not good enough. The time interval between taking WhyMurderDean and taking MatthewJenks was 59 seconds. Of that, 14 seconds is take time, leaving 45 seconds travel time. So, even with the Time Lord bonus (actually Region Lord, but Time Lord* sounds better) which would shave another 2 x 5 seconds off take times, it does look indeed like Mission Impossible. Unless, of course, some kind hearted Zone Maker creates three zones close together, or perhaps adds another zone between two existing close together zones. Hint hint, again.
Summary
- Start time – 13:13:11
- Travel to second zone WhyMurderDean – 22 seconds
- Take time at WhyMurderDean – 14 seconds
- Travel time to MatthewJenks – 45 seconds
- Take time at MatthewJenks – 14 seconds
- Finish time at MatthewJenks – 13:14:46
- Total time in seconds – 95 seconds
*from Dr Who.
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