Turf insider December 2021

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Turf insider January 2022 »

Round winners

Congratulations to the winners of round 137: féarglas from Scotland won her second Gold medal, Björke from Östergötland turfed home over one million points for his Silver and FilleFilur secured his first bronze after half a zillion R's (Region medals) and C's (Country medals) during the years.

Well done mates!

Bonanza 2022

Registration for Bonanza 2022 in Västervik will open on January 24^th. You can already now secure your place at the Bonanza banquet and order one Bonanza T-shirt and one lovely Turf multiheadwear by buying a Bonanza VIP-ticket (540 SEK) as a Christmas present for a Turf friend or yourself. You find all info at www.kalmarturf.se. There is also an offer for discounted accomodation for the Bonanza weekend, read more about it here.

24 h WINTER Event in Umeå 5-6^th of March 2022

Don't miss out on a once in a life time Turf event: Umeå Turf association has combined their classical Winter event with the exclusive Event 24, only held twice before. This will be the event to separate real winter hardened turfers from wishy-washy summer turfers. Read about it and sign up here.

Aviemore Turf event

Here's a report from the inaugural annual Aviemore Turf event from Emjbee:

”On the 20^th/21^st November the very first overnight turf event north of Edinburgh took place. Organised by Cambla it was set in and around the beautiful Aviemore. The first of the winter snow was on the mountains and there was a 'brisk chill' in the air. There was a bike event on the Saturday and then a more relaxed walking event on the Sunday around Glenmore forest park. It was my first ever Turf event, and despite having some technology failure (phone died) and signal problems at Glenmore, I loved every minute of it. There was a lovely prize-giving meal afterwards with many laughs, and a bonus prize of a wee bottle of beer or Prosecco for everyone who took part. walnut came away with the first prize in the bike event and needless to say I got the wooden spoon! At least I can blame technology. Particular highlights for me were getting a Crowdy-8 with all the lovely Turfers I met, as well as having turfing royalty féarglas as a room mate for the night.”

Zone in Pargas

In Pargas there is a very special zone you have to make sure to take if you ever visit, at least accordingly to Ojarnstr:

”If you are turfing in Pargas you will have to deal with the fact, that there is a big hole in the center of the town: The limestone quarry is the biggest in northern Europe. There are of course many zones placed around the quarry, that gives you the chance to experience a bit of industrial history. There have been industrial level mining operations here for over a century now.

The new zone HundbananStep is one of them and it is placed on one of the old slag heap hills called Hundbanan, “the dog track” by the locals. This because the small side cars used to transport rocks at the beginning of the 20^th century looked like dogs. Pictures here.

In order to take the zone you must climb the newly built exercise stairs to reach the top and the zone. The stairs has 470 steps, it is 180 meters long and the top is 50 meters above the sea level. Here you will have nice view over the limestone quarry and the surrounding area. At the top you will also find the art work “Kvinnan ur berget”, a dedication to the women who have worked in the quarry. Before the sorting of rocks was automated it was usually women who did the sorting by hand.

As this is a central zone it means it have be “lila” in warded so I have already been up the stairs many times… finding new muscles in my legs during the climbs.”

If you have not yet started to paint your zones ”lila”/”purple”, you need to log into warded and look up "Map of my unique zones", where zones are colour-coded accordingly to how many times you've taken them. Purple is the 'highest' colour, and a zone will become purple when you have taken it 51 times or more.

CanC from Turku sums up how Turf has changed her life

As we are closing in on the end of another Turf year, CanC from Turku, Finland sums up how Turf has changed her life in the last four years:

”When I reflect back on 4 years ago, I am in awe of how my lifestyle has changed. I drove everywhere. Not to the local shops, and I have always been an avid hiker and walker, but I drove to places that would have been easily accessible by bus, and to places that I didn’t really need to go.

A friend had often spoken about Turf before I began in 2018. I started walking – 5-8 miles a day. Didn’t get me many points, though. A year before (ed. I downloaded Turf) I began the Walk-1000-Mile challenge, sponsored by Country Walking magazine. Adding Turf to my daily routine was added pleasure. I started dreaming of scoring higher on a bike. At the same time, my perspective on life evolved. I wanted to live more sustainably and I wanted to get more exercise. So, I sold my car. The same day I bought an e-bike.

We (my husband Pecpec is also an avid player) are both physically much healthier – being 60+ means we need to remain mindful of staying active. Nature and outdoor exercise improve one’s mental health. Days are shortening quickly but Turf gets us out the door!”

Something that is getting turfers out on a daily basis is the new Daily-medal serie that was launced in September at the Bonanza. Just a few days ago it was time for the first Daily-90 medals: 417 turfers took it on that first day, and since then another 98 have added it to their medal collection. I am sure more will follow! DIProgan has made a web page that tracks those first turfers who battle for the Daily-365, RIP: Battle for the Daily. Don't forget to turn on the music!

If you are a Norweigian, American, Japanese, South Korean, Dutch or Danish turfer, I would love to hear some stories from the Turf World in your country as well :)

Did you know...

...that the turfer Aicar is the first turfer to take a C (Country medal) in three different countries? In June he took silver and a Swedish C, in September he took a C in Finland and in November he finished off with a Danish C. Congrats!

…that the turfer with most R's (Region medals) is FilleFilur from Finland, he has 57, gilla has 49 and CSL and GW007 both have 47.

...that recycling has R's from 15 (!) different regions.

Turfa lugnt/Safe turfing!

//Munin

...if you want to contribute to future Turf Insiders, send your story to insider@turfgame.com :)