Navigation Run 2025

John Earp has sent this report and photographs of some places he visited and people and bikes at the Flight Deck Café . I thought it was a good day out to many places I had definitely not been too. Eddy.

I was unsure whether I'd be back from a prolonged stay in the North East with my son so I doubted I'd be able to take part in the Navigation Run. Fortunately I did get home in time and so on a fine dry Sunday morning I set off from our start point at Tatenhill Airfield Flight Deck Café at 10am to my first destination, Marchington Church.
After signing on at the café we'd been given a sheet called 'Roads to Heaven Navigation Event' on which were 18 locations around Burton. Paul Chamberlain the organiser had explained that we must pick any 8 from the sheet of 18 destinations to visit and on arrival we would be required to answer a simple question before moving on to the next. All the locations would be churches.
I decided to start my journey in Marchington, a village with which I'm very familiar. On arrival at Marchington Church the question was, "What is sitting at the feet of the figure above the main door?" After parking my CD200 by the church gate and walking to the church door, I looked up and saw what I took to be a dragon so after writing this down on the sheet I made my way back to my bike. I cut across Marchington Woodland to the Church of Holy Angels at Hoar Cross. There was a Sunday service in progress so I quickly and quietly parked outside and walked up towards the main door. The question this time was "How old was Walter Aston Tamms when he died?" To the right of the main path was a monument on which I found the answer, 85 yrs old and so progressed to the next church at Dunstall and so on.
I visited my 8 chosen churches, some I was previously aware of and others were hard to find or a surprise to me given how many times I must have passed them on other occasions. Two that stand out were the churches at Croxall and Elford, both new to me. After visiting my last church at Stretton-en-le Field, I made my way back to the start point at Tatenhill Airfield.
This event was something a little different and I really enjoyed it. I rode alone although others travelled in groups but it didn't matter as we all had a great time. Incidentally I later found out that the people who ventured into Derbyshire in the Darley Moor direction were saturated by a rain shower but those like me who chose the other direction had a mainly dry day.
Apparently 21 bikes started which pleased Paul as he obviously put a lot of time and effort into arranging the event. Also thanks to the Flight Deck Café for letting us use their premises and Paul for organising the day. I'm sure we all had a great run although some were a little damp on their return but others like me were dry! John Earp