Day 13/14

After a relatively quite night with some opting to dine in Hunstville and others having a take out pizza in the cottages, the sixteen remaining team members assembled promptly on Friday morning to pack the vans. Fortunately it wasn’t raining for almost the first time since we had been in Algonquin, making packing a lot easier. All the vans left promptly at 8am for the drive to Ottawa to meet up with the advance party (Archie Whicher, Jane Messer, David Armstrong, Nigel Ball and Martin Townsend), who had spent the last couple of days setting up the team hut at Connaught. The GBRT has a basic but comfy classroom at the range, with a large fridge, which is used as a base for operations there. After being cleaned, set up and stocked up with food, it becomes the team’s HQ.

The drive to Ottawa was largely uneventful and all the vans managed to meet up at the hotel, unload all the kit into the rooms and then most piled into Vera’s, which does great burgers, for lunch. There was one shoot planned for the day (the Ottawa Regiment at 800m, equivalent to our Admiral Hutton) last thing in the evening and so the whole team assembled at the hut for a briefing and introduction to Connaught before that, with tour badges given out now that we are all finally together. Conditions for the Ottawa Regiment were dark, overcast and slightly rainy. Despite that, Jon Underwood came off with a 75.13 to tie for first place and seven others managed to get a 75. A good start to the shooting here, with plenty more to come. There were few a cobwebs that needed to be blown out, including leaving ammunition behind, missing shots and some confusion between left and right wind on one person’s sights!

Friday evening was spent in search of food, with the team splitting up into different groups, with dining options varying from Subway, via Thai to excellent seafood at Lapointe – an old favourite of Martin and Jane that had previously required a drive of a couple of miles to reach. Knowing they would be here again, the restaurant owners had decided to move it closer to them and it is now virtually opposite the hotel. In general most had a quiet night in ready for an early start for the next day’s shooting.

Saturday morning saw a gathering of everybody outside the back of the hotel getting themselves ready for the trip to the range. Everyone was on the 9am detail of the Gooderham at 500 yards. This was the first time we had shot a 2ss and 10 to count shoot for a while and things seemed to go well, with a total of nine 50s from the team. The Gooderham is a two range shoot, equivalent to our Century, and the second range of 600 yards was also shot in the morning, seeing a further ten possibles. That meant that six of the team were clean in the Gooderham, with Alastair Haley leading the way with 100.18 – This ended up being a match winning score by two clear V-bulls. There would have been a further 50 at 600 yards if Stu Young hadn’t put a v-bull on the wrong target for his last to count!

Rain then set in for the afternoon and most of the team retired to the hotel for the afternoon, to return for the Army and Navy Veterans (fifteen to count at 900m) at 4pm. The rain did dampen things somewhat but despite that, Stu Young managed a 75.5 and Jon Underwood a 75.4, with higher V 74s plentiful.