Today we had to change mode from sightseeing tourists to elite sports people (well ok forget the elite part).  Time to dig out the spikes, gaiters, compasses (thanks to our Melbourne friends for lending us northern hemisphere ones) and SI sticks.  Pete and I had to be at the event site by 9am to take our places in the Opening Ceremony, representing Australia.  We donned our DROC polo tops and I borrowed Ian’s Australian team jacket and pinned a kangaroo to it.  We carried small Aussie flags and looked the part.

Flying the flag

On the way we saw this sign: do they give refunds if a wish is not granted?!

The day got off to a great start when the off ramp that we were supposed to take was closed and the bus driver became navigationally challenged.  Luckily the bus was full of orienteers with smartphones so after much consultation we got back on track.

The first of the five events was Long Distance, in the Belgrade Forest about 30 kms north of Istanbul.  It made a nice change to see greenery.  The assembly area was a large picnic area dotted with wooden tables, so we nabbed one next to the finish chute and festooned it with the little flags to stake our claim.

Event site – great picnic spot

After a while they called us up to take part in the opening ceremony.  For each of the 26 countries represented, the oldest and youngest team members were asked to stand behind their national flag.  Australia was first, then we were joined by Austria, and so on down the line to Ukraine.  Afterwards we had some Russian competitors take our photo because they had been to the Masters in Sydney.  We felt like celebrities.

Team Australia meets Team Austria

After that it was down to business.  The Belgrade forest is beech. Here is the terrain description:

This area offers runnable, hilly terrain with lots of various depressions, small streams at the bottom of deep gullies and numbers of pits remaining after local treasure hunting, and 5 small Byzantian aqueducts.

What they forgot to mention was all the grabby scratchy prickly thorny stuff that was everywhere! Even in the lovely open parts there were these awful long green vines waiting to ensnare you at every step. Pete and I have tied for the Denise award with our cuts and scratches.

Tangly beech forest

All our courses were lengthier than what we usually do at home, in my case about 1.5 kms longer, so we all anticipated being out for a long time.  It was all about coming to terms with different terrain, and surviving the vegetation.  Ilze was off first.  She’d taken her little camera, and was just thinking what a hassle it was getting caught up in things, when she saw this …

I was second cab off the rank.  I found my first control easily after a very steep climb.  I decided to use tracks to get to my second control, not liking the look of the veg and thinking I would play it safe in the early stages.  Lesson 1 – Turkish beech forest has tracks which are almost invisible, they are covered with leaf litter.  Spending a long time circling the control, I finally realised I was on the track after all, with the control just off to the left.  The next couple of legs were fine and I was starting to think I was getting the hang of it.  Then on leg 5 it all went horribly wrong.  It was such a short distance away but I just couldn’t find it.  Eventually I headed for a road to relocate, and of course found the attack point I’d been looking for, then the control.  Next came a long leg which I did well.  Now I was half way and I’d been out for about 90 minutes! Gulp.  Stuffed up control 7 after taking what I thought was a track and wasn’t.  The rest really isn’t worth mentioning, suffice to say I was getting extremely tired and it wasn’t pretty.  I dropped my map over a steep embankment at one point.  Eventually I staggered up the finish chute, knackered but happy to complete the course.

Me heading to the start triangle

Ian, Ilze and Pete all finished too.  Pete has a bad back and had to go round on a walking pole, so he did really well just to complete the course.  It’s not looking like Australia will see a podium finish, but we can only improve from here!

Ian heads off into the forest

Ilze finishing

Theoretically our afternoons are free for sightseeing, so we obligingly visited the Grand Bazaar.  Last year they held a sprint race in there, after dark.  Must have been a real challenge, the place is a complete rabbit warren.  You could buy all sorts of handcrafts, clothes, musical instruments, lamps etc.  Ilze was very taken with the reams of fabric and the plethora of buttons.

Fabric shop, Grand Bazaar (stop drooling Tina!)

We’re now in recovery mode for day 2 which has much shorter courses- thank goodness.  Think I’ll take a machete this time.