The metrogaine is done and dusted and I hope everyone enjoyed the outing. I was pleased to see many teams visited controls #102 and #65, hopefully appreciating the wonderful westerly views along the way.
As we couldn't distinguish the theme bonus in the results listing, I thought people might be interested in some stats about who collected what themes.
35 of the 57 teams collected the theme bonus of 300 points. The History theme was the most popular, with the following 20 teams (in point-score order) visiting 8 of the 9 history controls: 55, 33, 26, 38, 39, 37, 51, 57, 20, 40, 35, 1, 4, 24, 41, 58, 18, 28, 53, 60. The control most commonly left out was 46.
Education was the next most popular theme, with these 10 teams collecting 8 of the 10 education controls: 36, 8, 9, 42, 56, 52, 23, 22, 59, 15. The most commonly left out controls were 41, 43 and 45. (Team 36, the overall winners, also qualified for the bonus on history and playgrounds as well.)
Playgrounds managed to attract 4 teams: 11, 50, 13, 49, with all 4 leaving out controls 74 and 76. Only one team opted for Waterbodies: 29, and, ironically for a sporting event, no-one was interested in the Sports theme!
While the popularity of the History theme was not unexpected, I was a little surprised at the strength of the preference for the cemetery (100) over the old schoolhouse (#46). I trust Mary Southwell appreciated the attention. I realised when I went to collect 84 from Reservoir Hill the next day, and looked in the reservoirs for the punch that some wag had removed from the flag, that the reservoirs were not only very dry but also very old, and I could have just as easily made them a History control (instead of 23). This may have evened out the appeal of the themes somewhat and drawn more teams to the less visited NE and E parts of the course. (No, I didn't find the punch.)