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I have to say, I've never done orienteering - I believe it's a suburban form of wilderness trekking/TA exercise. So, bear with me, if you have a sense of direction, and sense of time, why is a compass an essential unless the mist has come down ? Why is a map necessary if you're already familiar with your surroundings ? Carry both (and telephone, and maybe GPS) for the sake of safety - but how often does the experienced person actually need to use any of them ?

According to Wikipedia, which as we know is infallible, "Orienteering is a family of sports that requires navigational skills using a map and compass to navigate from point to point in diverse and usually unfamiliar terrain, and normally moving at speed. Participants are given a topographical map, usually a specially prepared orienteering map, which they use to find control points."

I think if you used GPS you would be drummed out of the corps. As for sports which require skills that aren't that relevant to one's everyday routine, there's the javelin throw, or fencing, or...

I think you'll sense my drift though. For a person starting off to eg, climb all the Munros, you'd strongly advise they carry map, compass and phone. After some years, you'd probably say that the phone was the only essential (assuming that they've got into the discipline of familiarising with where they're going, or have been there before). Orienteering does sound a little 'toy soldiers'...

And therefore is unworthy as a puzzle theme, or....? Other than allowing you to get your weekly grumpy face on, what's your point?

Well, how wrong you can be (is that allowed on your site, Lord Kilgore ?!) My face is far from grumpy. What is my point ? How can I spell it out any clearer. Ethiopians and Kenyans run very long distances - it used to be a lifestyle thing, but now is more a specialist athletic thing - how many of them ever carried a compass or a map. The same with many native people all over the world. The same ability is within any one of us, should we choose to use it and train it.

So, sense of direction must be an essential, but the other two ? Why not a phone for when they get lost or injure themselves through unaccustomed exercise ?

I've worked it all out except for 28d and 38d. Can someone please tell me the 2nd letter of 28d and the first letter of 38d? Muchas gracias.

The only clash in the grid is the 2nd letter of 28d and the 1st of 32 across, the starting point for the endgame as described in the preamble. If you "solve" the endgame (fairly straightforward) resolving the clash should be apparent.
The 1st letter of 38d is "g", aunt in ger giving gaunter.

Thanks ginge, I've finally worked out the answer to 28d and put in the lines - finished at last!