Winter Series 2000-2001
Round 1 - 15th October 2000

Again favouring the Irwell valley, Chris Heys hid half a mile up-stream from his November 1999 site. This time he was on the north side of the river Irwell, not on the bank under a dangerous precipice, but in an area surrounded by the loop of the river, with the disused Manchester, Bolton & Bury canal above. The area was an old mining site, but with all buildings long since demolished it has since developed into a wooded area, although not shown as green on the Landranger map. The main difficulty with this event for competitors was deciding on which side of the canal and river to look (preferably in-between). Once on site, the overhead pylons added extra difficulty.

Chris Plummer was first to snoop around the transmitter crew's bush, but subsequent transmissions lead him eastwards under the power lines. Meanwhile John Jocys had also guessed the correct side of the river first, but had difficulty with his set's sense and disappeared off to explore the south side. Dave Chippendale parked his car at "Nob End" and perhaps with last November's DF in mind made a day out of exploring the south side of the river and unfortunately suffered a DNF. John Heath's young assistant Chris was first to spot the TX crew, by poking his head into a suitable looking bush during a random search while the transmitter was off-air. Chris Plummer was still on site and was unfortunate to be out of earshot when Chris shouted "HE'S IN THIS BUSH HERE!!"

Chris Heys discovered this site while out for a run. Appropriate then that Dave Peacock should fancy running all the way from Moses Gate Country Park, 2 miles away!

Giles was on the transmitter crewe for the first time, a role not naturally suited to a windbag. However, the prolonged silence on site was more than made up for in pub, now renamed "The Bay Horse's Mouth".