By: Blonde Two

Yesterday I gave you a little lesson in triangulation, otherwise known as “How to find out where you are when you can point at and name lots of Dartmoor tors.”  Of course, there are other methods of triangulation.  For example, the Two Blondes parked in the Triangle car park in Exeter on Thursday night.  It is a well known local landmark and, these days, even has signposts with the word “Triangle” on them.  Blonde One knew how to get from there to the quiz and by the time we had walked there, I knew exactly how far it was because I had paced it out to prove that the 11 minute sign was wrong.

On leaving the quiz later that evening, we put our navigation in the hands of those Dartmoor Rescue fellas.  “We are parked in the triangle car park” we said, “Oh so are we”, they said.  So we followed them – we trustingly didn’t mention it when their route differed from our original one.  You don’t argue with the boys in red, they have taken tests and everything!  (Well strictly speaking, we have taken tests too but theirs are much longer – its a boy thing!)

Anyway, there was much hysterical laughter when we got to our destination and realised that we were in a completely different car park.  Admittedly, it was a bit triangle shaped but I would come down more on the side of a rhombus and my Mum’s a math’s teacher so I should know.  It was at this point, once I had wiped my eyes, that I made a navigational error – this error is to do with knowing your strengths and weaknesses.  I had spotted a landmark that meant that I knew how to walk to the correct Triangle but accepted a gallantly offered lift instead.  Anyone who has been around me for any length of time will know that all navigation sense escapes me as soon as I get into a car.  This meant that it took us rather longer to drive back to the right car park than it would have done to walk.

There are a few triangles on the OS28 Dartmoor map.  Most of them are trig (triangulation) points and should be amongst the easier features to find along with rivers, large tors and main roads.  After Thursday night’s performance, I am not sure that they are so easy after all.