Turf Zone – MaggiesAisle
Friday the 31st May, the start of Sconanza 2024, the second Scottish Turf Open Championships and an influx of rare turfers from exotic and foreign lands have this turfer twitching with excitement to get on his bike and ride into Edinburgh to hunt down a few turfer uniques. So excited in fact that he even for forgoes his second cup of morning coffee. But not the first one, the one accompanied with the four-fingered Kit-Kat!
One issue with this game is that turfer uniques are often few and always seem to be far between, at least locally. It’s a different matter when you travel to new areas. Add to that the simply fact that they are transient, will vanish at will, only to appear again at another zone somewhere else, usually at zones were you are not or passed by about 30 minutes ago. It can be a frustrating game hunting turfer uniques.
My first two targets were at the Inch area of Edinburgh, a five-mile cycle to start with but not so bad when your bike has gears, not so easy when you have a single speed. I’m glad my bike now has gears! Zone ManyInches gave me turfer Proscoe, and zone Craigmillar, located not far away, gave me turfer AnnSch. Two down and six to go. Well, fingers crossed anyway.
Next turfer unique stop, zone DustyZone, found in the Mayfield area and taken from turfer Gusi. And not far away zone GrangeCourt for another, this time from turfer 0beroff. Doing well so far with four turfer uniques added to the list. Bit of a trek to the next turfer unique, all the way across town to Haymarket and zone Pairkiezone, one of only a small handful held by turfer HappyF. and the next one, another trek, this time down to the Comely Bank area, for the zone of the same name, taken from turfer JIL.
Now, I should point out a good tip when hunting turfer uniques and that is to regularly check the TVT page on Warded so see what zone changes, if any, have occurred. Never assume things have stayed the same since you last checked. They tend not to. Note you will need to log off and back in again as the page does not automatically refresh. And don’t be dismayed that your latest take does not show on the list, it will in due course.
Just the two turfer uniques remaining on today’s to-do list. The first at zone StMarys, by the St. James Quarter and held by the unusually named turfer, cake? Actually, that had me thinking about changing my turf name to something scone related, perhaps, SconeKing, SconeHunter or even SconeOfScones. Yea, well, it’s just a bit of fun! But I’ll tell you what wasn’t fun was cycling up to the top of Leith from down by Stockbridge, bloody shoogly cobbles all the way. Won’t be going that route again if I can avoid it.
And that just left me with one solitary turfer unique outstanding. This one was held by turfer Pathlete, and the zone in question was MaggiesAisle. A final check on Warded did not show any further turfer uniques nearby, some were slightly tempting 8 miles away in the Bonaly area, a cluster of zones held by cloisters, who I think is a local, so should be able to get one another day. Didn’t fancy cycling across Edinburgh again, much preferring to return home via Portobello and Musselburgh. A grand day’s turfing, 40K cycled, 66 zones in total taken and 8 turfer uniques for the collection. Now, I wonder what turfer unique treats tomorrow will bring?
Copyright ©2024 Gary Buckham. All rights reserved.
