Turf insider February 2023
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Contents
Round winners – January 2023 (Round #151)
Congratulations to the winners of round January 2023: Björke from Östergötland took his fourth Gold, Fashven from Scotland doubled up on his Silvers and féarglas added a second Bronze to her medal suite. Well done mates!
Upcoming events
If you are organizing an open event, don't forget to write to insider@turfgame.com a couple of months in advance to get the information about your event into the news letter :)
Västerbotten Winter Classic 2023
If you like snow and cold, head to Umeå for their Winter Classic in the middle of February. Turf Västerbotten will organize their annual Winter Classic event on Saturday the 18th . More information can be found at Turf Västerbotten´s home page HERE.
Bonanza 2023 in Umeå
The main event of the Turf World is organized by Turf Västerbotten on the 20th of May with events in two classes, a Bonanza banquet and lots of other fun activities, I am sure. Sign up for the [Bonanza:Umeå 2023|Bonanza 2023]] can be found HERE. See you in Umeå in May! :)
Turf Awards 2022
Turf Awards is awarded to turfers who have made significant or particularly attentive achievements during the previous year or have been involved in an especially noted or spectacular zone takeover.
Nominations for Turf Awards 2022 are now open, HERE. The nomination period will close on February 28th. I know you all have that special turfer you want to acknowledge a little extra.
Past Events
Turf Insider likes to report about events that took place anywhere in the Turf world, so please write to insider@turfgame.com.
Here is a summation about the 10th Lusseturf that took place in Västerås in December by HERBAJANNE for Turf Västmanland.
"Congratulations Podde to first place in Lusseturf 2022! A total of 70 players took part in the event. The special zone, which only the zoner knew, was "Stjärngosse" and it was taken first by AEM! Congratulations!
The event had 200 zones when it started and 20 zones went live during the event. This was a first for an open event with this many participants. The first zone created during the event was "VarDuHere", it was first taken by Gurra98. Another of the new zones was "YouFoundMe" where ami68 seemed to be running across Norrleden to be first...don't forget to stay safe during Events! ami68 also took that "LastZone" (which was the last of the extra 20) first, it was at 12:21, and kept it THE REST OF THE EVENT (until 1:00 PM).
Coffee, mulled wine and Turf-"lusse" buns were served, and hats and buffs were also available for purchase.
Do you want to be involved in organizing LusseTurf 2023? Please register your interest already now at kontakt@uturf.se and we will keep the tradition alive."
I am lucky to live less than one hour by car from Västerås, so Lusseturf has become a nice annual "Christmas" tradition for me. This year new shoes gave me blisters after just two Event zones, so I limped back to the fclub house and spent the rest of the event trying to take the Event zone located over the club house.
Turf Clubs/Associations
A new section in Turf Insider for Club News and Club introductions is introduced here. We have many Turf Associations around the Turf world. This is a space where they can get their news heard. Write to insider@turfgame.com] if you have any Club news you want to see here :)
Turf Skåne has been around since 2016 and here is a short introduction by Kingslayer to this most southern Turf Association in Sweden:
“Turf Skåne is a Turf club in the southernmost region of Sweden. We were founded in 2016 and currently have 50+ members.
We consider ourselves quite innovative; in 2017 we created ”En Skånsk Klassiker” which is an event of sorts that run for a full calendar year and by completing groups of Turf achievements you can win physical medals and a cup. This event is more about experiencing than competing. And participation is free for everyone! In 2018 we hosted a Turfathlon event.
On an annual basis we have a club championship, and Open event in Malmö, and a closed event every New years day. In summertime we normally organize one or several picnics with a short foot event.
On the social side we have Turf get-togethers each Thursday after a new round starts, and in summertime we sometimes gather for some BBQ. With the exception of the yearly club championship which is for members only, all our activities are open for any Turfer, member or not, Skåning or not.
On our web page (in Swedish) you will find a blog, tips for new and not-so-new turfers, all our events and get-togethers listed and some Turfy statistics: turfskane.com“
Trip To Holland in January
Turf Insider is always happy when turfers write in with their stories. This time it is FeTaTo from Scotland with the story about her Trip to Holland in January, enjoy and be inspired!
Why Holland in January
After a relatively quiet turf round in December except for the two Advent Calendars to get me out (thanks Skåne and Örebro) I needed some adventure/exploring. UK train strikes were frustrating home possibilities and Holland popped up as a challenge idea. Insufficient turfers there for a country medal but a good rail network meant that I could challenge myself to the Netherland Explorer medal alongside unique zones.
Booked flight to Amsterdam. Downloaded NS (train) app. Printed out map of Dutch train routes and the 12 regions then, with the help of turf app, I planned a provisional route. Walking boots on my feet and backpack on my back I set off for the airport by bus (it was a train strike day). 10 days later I had walked over 290km (about half with my luggage), cycled for around 22hr, 13hr train travel, and turfed in 20 towns/cities but I had my Netherland Explorer medal and 561 unique zones (30% of the current zones).
I really should have planned further in advance as there was not time to apply for a NS Flex card which would have given me 40% off off-peak train travel and allowed me to use OV-fiet (bike) from stations.The card costs 5.60 euro/month but can be cancelled after 1 month. Buying tickets through the app and scanning at the gates worked smoothly - except the first time when the attendant suggested that perhaps my phone screen was too small!
Train travel. Most routes in Holland have at least half hourly services even on Sundays! I could stop off as many times as I wanted on a route and stopped aiming for particular trains but just took the zones that I wanted then back to the station.
Noord-Holland is the only active turfing region. Most of my Amsterdam zones were retaken promptly. I had a bike one day and in typical FeTaTo I set out towards the suburbs - I love seeing a cross-section of communities and cycling is often easier outside city centres. This also gave me an opportunity to get some grip on cycling in Holland.
My travel route was predominantly clockwise from Amsterdam. Most towns have just a few spread out zones. Almere, my first stop outside Amsterdam, was probably the bottom - I only took 6 zones and rarely had 2 zones blocked at any one time. Groningen was quite compact - my hotel mentioned that I probably wouldn't need to borrow their bike in the morning if I went for a walk that evening . True. I covered most of the zones during the evening walk plus to and from the station though most of my walking was done in the dark
Kampen is well worth a turfing visit. After all 70 zones (35 winner zones) I didn’t feel that I had exercised. The bike was stuck in first gear but, having walked marathon distances on the previous two days, my legs enjoyed the slow gentle ride and I was enjoyed looking around. Perhaps the presence of so many winner zones made the route so nice but where are those turfers now? Hardly any of the zones were taken off me.
Zeeland region is a bit out the way and only has 57 zones. The nearest train accessible place with zones was Goes but I still don’t know how to pronounce that - confused the train manager when I asked about it. Flat, flat and flat. That day it rained all day and I became rather wet each of the 4 times that I was out of trains. And why did I get out at Rotterdam Zuid station that day. It was obviously not the main station - a wet FeTaTo on a cold and windy station raised above the surrounding city with good views in the dark. Not what I wanted which was to be able to change into warm dry clothes. Luckily there were frequent trains so I was soon on my way again. When dry again I set out to walk around Rotterdam. The bridges are very memorable in the dark (best seen in the dark?) though zones felt spread out.
Rotterdam and The Hague both have Donkey Republic bikes available to hire. I have found these very useful in places around Sweden and Denmark and again here. An advantage of these bikes is that they can be collected and dropped off at many places. In Rotterdam the weather forecast was for strong winds so I set off walking but I changed to bike when I realised that there was little wind - though I then visited zones further away rather than focus on central ones.
Holland has 3 times the population of Scotland living in an area just over half its size. It is flat with good transport networks and bikes galore. Why are there so few turfers? I didn’t do a huge amount of cycling in Holland but in many ways I found it easier to cycle turf than even Sweden and both Sweden and Holland were more pleasant to cycle turf than Danish cities. Bike definitely usually felt like King in Holland. However, I am more likely to go back to Denmark and will definitely be back in Sweden - zone density is so much better for a uniques raider. Zone distribution and the fact that cycling is transport rather than exercise (gyms are everywhere) could be contributing to the low take-up of turfing. I found it interesting to note that the most recent 5 takes in south Holland had often been by Swedes.
Many of the zones are off the paths. I took to saying to myself ‘here we go again into the brambles’ a few times. Twice I found myself standing arm out right at the edge of water as the zone was just in the water. I occasionally got waterways wrong but not as often as I expected. For a country where most zones are not visited very regularly I found very few zones to raise issues on.
My ‘Wow I wasn’t expecting that’ zone in Holland was Oostwatertor on my walk towards the coast from The Hague. I had set off on a rather long but varied FTT route and it was getting dark as I walked along a track though trees behind the sand-dunes.
Suddenly the view in the photo appeared. I kept walking to the coast and a Donkey Republic bike took me back into The Hague.
I had only set myself a target of 500 (of the 1800) zones for the trip due to spread out nature of the zones and that I would likely be walking many of the zones. I did reach my target but it was hard work with all the luggage carrying. I have described here just a few of my observations and experiences. A thoroughly enjoyable adventure and explore - my main reason for turfing. And no ice or snow though a few windy (lots of discarded broken umbrellas) and wet days towards the end of my trip. Overall the weather treated me very well for the time of year."
Turf Picture of the Month
This month's Turf Picture is of the zone CommonsPeni taken by UrukHek. In January 6 turfers from 3 different continents sent in their pictures, thank you! Keep 'em coming :)
Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!
//Munin
...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :) C'mon and share your big and small stories with the Turf world.
