A report from a first-timer, Corrine Macdonald
It was at the Chiddingstone Castle Autumn Gathering that we were first introduced to the Naviscat day organised for Sunday 10 October. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were strolling around the grounds, watching the last leg of the Hever Triathlon and admiring the other MGs lined up in the grounds, when we stopped to talk to Philip Bayne Powell and his wife in their MG Car Club tent. On their table was the A4 sheet advertising the Naviscat day and, after them explaining exactly how it worked, we thought it looked great fun and something we would enjoy. On our holidays and days out we always love finding out- of- the- way places to explore so this seemed right up our street (or should I say small country lane).
Never having done anything like this before, we were a concerned that we would be out of our depth but were reassured by Chris and Janice Leigh when we arrived at the Moody Cow near Mereworth that all would be well if we plotted our map carefully and perhaps attempted the easier drive-by questions first. After a good breakfast and the briefing we were given the 41 questions with the six point grid references and took a good half-hour working out where they all were.
We set off on our preferred route taking in the points, even attempting some of the more difficult ones, and managing to avoid the cyclists who were on their charity run. Such beautiful countryside and great fun finding the clues and surprisingly not coming across any traffic jams! Maps and navigation are my thing and Alex loves driving his MG so between us we hoped we would make a good team. It was explained to us that we would never be able to get to all the clues and we only managed to arrive at 17 of the locations having to fly past a difficult clue on our dash back to the finishing point of the Rose Revived near Hadlow. We arrived there with a minute to spare!
After a lovely roast lunch with great company the results were read out and to our great surprise we managed second place of the MGs and also won the Novices Prize of a box of chocolates. Who would ever have imagined this? The only two clues we did not get were ones high up in the air, we put this down to having a roof on our MGB – well that’s our excuse! It was a wonderful end to a great day. Should anyone be thinking of participating in an event like this in the future, we can highly recommend it.
– Corinne Macdonald
