12. The start of the learning process
It's never too late.
Dear Reader,
In terms of navigation – and in the hope of defying the proverb – this old dog needs to be taught some new tricks: any tricks at all that will help me find my way.
As you know I’m mostly enjoying exploring the possible reasons and identifying solutions for my appalling sense of direction while I’m out in the world getting lost, and a course advertised in the local adult education centre’s spring/summer brochure had immediately caught my attention:
Navigation and Safety Day
Mystified by maps? Confused by a compass?
Improve your map-reading skills and have more confidence to get out there.
The course overview promised that participants would ‘improve your navigation skills, pacing, reading a map and using a compass. What to do in an emergency. Use your phone to pinpoint your exact location and alert emergency services.’1
Well, I’ve never yet had to alert emergency services – unless you count my husband on speed dial – but this course looked right up my street.
The course, back in May, was brilliant. We were a diverse bunch: eight of us, seven ladies and one chap. I was one of the youngest, and – to my surprise – not even the least geographically-confident person there. That reassured me for my own sake, but I felt huge empathy for some of the others whose difficulties in finding their way around were even greater than mine.
To break the ice we exchanged stories.
One keen solo traveller explained that she loved to take coach tours to historic towns and cities which she wanted to have the confidence to explore alone and in her own time. ‘The thing is’, she said, ‘I always seem to go off in the wrong direction and never get to see what I’ve gone all that way to see.’
A bubbly lady around my own age, wearing a t-shirt announcing that she’d just completed the Jurassic Coast Path, told us that she enjoys two walking holidays a year, and will only ever walk in a group so that she doesn’t have to find her own way. ‘Much less stressful’, she grinned.
My own contribution was to say that I get lost not just on rural walks but also in town centres and car parks. I giggled awkwardly, trying to make light of it. Two fellow students shot me understanding glances.
’I get lost in my own house, Rebecca’, said one. ‘Seriously.’
I was – I am – not alone.
Ice-breakers out of the way, we began to familiarise ourselves with the layout of an Ordnance Survey Explorer map, impressed that its clever folding system meant that there is no part of it that cannot easily be accessed.
We opened the 24cm x 13cm map – at this stage in a rucksack-friendly, easily-handled format – and found it to be an immense 100cm x 89cm sheet when unfolded all the way.
Its first fold had been made backwards and lengthways along its middle so that the two halves of its unprinted side faced each other. All of the other creases in this plane had created a concertina of valley folds and mountain folds, and finally the whole map, at this stage long and narrow, had been folded in half, its glossy water-resistant cover now housing the neatly-packaged map within it.
We experimented with opening the map in different ways so as to access different parts of it without having to unfold the whole thing, each time making sure to equalise its folds so as not to stress the creases.
We learned that the word ‘map’ comes from the Latin ‘mappa’, meaning napkin or cloth. I asked myself rather unkindly whether that is why, when I’m confronted with one, I’m generally tempted to fling myself under a blanket and not come out until morning.
#childish
Maps re-folded, our attention turned to the points of the compass. There is more than one north, it turns out. Magnetic north, or ‘compass north’, is different to grid north, or ‘map north’.
Actually, there must be a third north2, too. I claim this for my own. Until my first formal geography lesson at school, aged eight, I had thought that ‘north’ was simply the name given to wherever I happened to be facing. Through laughter I hadn’t understood at the time my patient teacher had gently set me straight.
On this course today, though, we would not be working with points of the compass or bearings or numbers of degrees: instead we would simply ‘set the map’. To do this we were given this mantra:
‘The N of the needle points to the top of the map.’
The top of the map is always north. The trick of setting the map I felt was a clever one: it was the way to establish the correct direction of travel by following the – well, yes – direction of travel arrow on the compass.
After leaving the security of the classroom for the great outdoors, we were each given our own map and compass to work with. I held the map so that grid north was at the top.
‘Rebecca, you’re holding your map like a book, not a map. Turn it so it reflects where you’ll be going.’
I laughed, and knew I must be blushing. I followed what the others were doing.
On my map I lined up the path we would be taking from the start point of our walk with one of the black lines on the base plate of my compass, and turned my body – and my map and compass – until the N of the compass needle pointed to the top of the map. The direction of travel arrow on my compass was now pointing me straight down the path I needed to take.
Reader, my mind was blown. Suddenly I could translate what was on the map with the landscape in front of me right here in real life. Easy!
Every few minutes on our walk we were encouraged to ‘set the map’ in this way. And every time we would line up our compass with the path on the map we were on in real life, and the direction of travel arrow would confirm that we were heading the right way. At junctions with a choice of paths the same technique would determine which one to take.
I could do this.
I felt pretty smug to learn that ‘thumbnailing’ – marking the way on the map as you go – was something I’d already been doing on my own solo walks. I’d been using the technique to make myself aware of the next landmark to look out for, and to ascertain whether I would be going left, right or straight on at my next junction. Our tutor refined this further, and told us to be aware of WWWW:
What will I see?
Where will I see it?
When will I see it?
What if I go too far?
The last W – identifying a catchment feature that will tell us if we’ve gone too far – is perhaps the most important. On my commute to the business college, as described in ‘Sal has a jaffa salad’ last week, the leisure centre had been my catchment feature. If I ever ended up there on my way to the business college – which I often did – I would know I’d overshot my planned route.
(To their credit, leisure centre car parks tend at least to be roomy enough for lost travellers to turn their car around in. Worth knowing.)
Estimating distance was another useful tool. We knew we could eyeball the map to roughly work out how many metres – or hundreds of metres – we needed to travel to find our next waypoint, but how would we measure that distance on the ground?
Time to practise pacing. The tutor measured a distance of 100m and we were asked to walk to his mark at our normal gait, counting every other foot plant. Wherever I’m going I always set off on my left foot, so I counted every left step until I’d reached the 100m mark. After repeating this a couple of times I had established that 64 of my double paces add up to 100m (give or take a 2% variation either way). Perfect! And reader, it’s scalable. So, if I want to measure 500m on the ground I need to double-pace my count of 64 five times. Again, easy.
A couple more useful tips I picked up:
1. Don’t use your finger to point anything out on a map to anyone else: it’s far too big and therefore very inaccurate. Pick a blade of grass and point with the tip of that instead.
2. Don’t use your compass underneath power lines or near metal objects. And hold it horizontal and steady, ‘not upright and all over the place, Rebecca’.
(Ask me how I know.)
Having spent the day confronting and working through some of my navigational challenges I felt epic. Now I could use a map, a compass and my own left foot to get myself around without losing my way.
I even used the pacing technique the following week when I was assisting my photographer husband on a location shoot. He’d needed to know whether his remote triggers would be in range of where he wanted his camera to be, and had set about pacing the distance toe-to-heel, knowing that his boots measure exactly a foot. Exasperated, he lost count when he tripped himself up for a second time.
Reader, this was something I could do! ‘Your range is 50m, right? Leave it to me!’
Off I went, beaming, knowing that 50m was 32 of my double paces, and established that we were within range. My husband set up his tripod and the triggers worked beautifully.
Having familiarised myself with the basics of an Ordnance Survey map and a compass, and knowing I had already put some basic techniques into useful practice, I left the course feeling I could conquer any navigational challenge the landscape could throw at me. I was keen as mustard to start using these tools on my own walking adventures.
What’s more, I learned that the tutor would be offering a follow-up course in July, entitled ‘Not Getting Lost’. I’ll save the predictable plot spoiler for now, and tell you all about it in a future post.
Love,
Rebecca
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Which tools do you swear by when trying to find your way?
And, come to think of it, which do you swear at?!
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ACRES Adult Learning - Adult College for Rural East Sussex
Knowing my luck, there’s probably a fourth, too. Or more.
Rebecca, You not only made me laugh, but I have to tell you that, though I can navigate my way through thousands of books, I'm often lost--and have been since I was a kid except when taking repeated routes, like the walk to school. I've use the excuse that this lost-ness has to do with my creative mind. Not sure everyone buys that. But I'm still using it with a smile and a detour.
Sounds like that class was very helpful and thanks for the tips! Growing up, we didn't have smartphones so road trips always included a map. Now, sadly, I'm too dependent on smartphone GPS and don't know what I'd do if I had to go back to reading a map, lol. Great post, Rebecca!