Saturday

Day 1 of competition was the Sprint Championship.  The venue was Canberra Grammar, a stone’s throw from our apartment.  Peter and Simon, running 21E, had late morning starts, with the rest of us spread between 1 and 3pm.  We settled into the arena and got on with the important business of catching up with friends (some of whom we hadn’t seen for a whole 5 days!)

The course was all set in the school buildings, with no use made of the ovals and open spaces, so it was all technical and very compact – 22 controls in 2 kms, and a map changeover as well.  It’s amazing what you can do with a pocket handkerchief sized map.  It was a lot of fun as always.  I finished 9^th of 18 which was one of my better sprint efforts, after a very clean run.  Ian also had a good race, coming 10^th in a big and very competitive field, and pulling up injury free.  Pete missed his 2^nd last control, and Ilze’s SI stick didn’t register at one of her controls, so two unfortunate mispunches. Peter came midfield in 21E and knocked off a few scalps, with Simon a couple of minutes slower.  It all whet the appetite for our own Sprint series, starting in a couple of weeks.

Sunday

Long Distance day, and a long drive as well, to Jerangle via Captains Flat, aka Middle of  Nowhere.  The terrain notes talked about “pleasant running through lightly timbered forest”.  It’s not the first time Canberrans have lied through their teeth.  You’d think I’d know better by now, as this was not the first time we’ve fallen for that trick.

We amused ourselves in the long loo queue, scaring the NZers with tales of snakes and spiders – always a good laugh. I’ve never seen a snake while orienteering (though we have encountered a few while rogaining).

I set off with high hopes – the immediate terrain was open and runnable, and I grabbed my first two controls in no time.  Then we were in the “lightly timbered” forest – fallen trees and logs absolutely everywhere. There was no running, pleasant or otherwise.  Resigning myself to a longer time out than I’d anticipated, I navigated very cleanly all the way to no 7.  At no 6 I met Ian, looking befuddled, so I pointed him in the right direction and kept on.  After 7 I finally hit the open paddocks again, and immediately lost my brain.  I ran in what I thought was the right direction to no 8, only to come up against a fence.  Hmm, that wasn’t supposed to happen!  A quick backtrack costing about 5 minutes and some annoyance, and I was off again.  I ran uphill onto a huge open saddle with clusters of trees and rocks all over the place. Ran right past my control without seeing it, did a big loop around and lost another 5 minutes.  The big open space went to my head!  After that I got back on track and kept clean, though the scramble up to no 13 was a struggle. I was never in the hunt, even without the errors I would have been no better than midfield*.  Ian had a disaster, spending a lot of time hunting for a tiny termite mound, then losing interest in the whole proceedings.

That’s the end of competition for us, just a social wander around the Parliamentary area with a photomap, which sounds fun, then home on Tuesday.

* later examination of the splits showed that I was very competitive on the open legs (apart from the ones I stuffed up) but well off the pace in the slow forest.

Monday

Funny how sometimes the things you know least about turn out to be the most fun.  Today we attended the opening ceremony for the Schools Champs, to cheer on the Vic team and Asha and Lanita in particular. We also collected our maps for the “Capital O”, a non competitive fun event.  The map is beautiful,  1:5000 scale of the Parliamentary Triangle. It has 36 controls and takes 7 kms to cover.  There are 36 matching photos, which you have to identify at each control site. It was harder than it sounds in some cases, as the photos are sometimes a bit obscure! But all great fun, and we learned a lot and visited some places we would never have otherwise seen (and that is one of the great joys of orienteering).  Who knew there was a fog sculpture and a pond full of decapitated heads, behind the National Gallery?  We took heaps of silly photos as we went, and it all took 3 hours.  Team Think claimed victory as the first Victorian team to complete CapitalO, after our rivals from Bayside admitted to skipping no 20 (wimps).  No cutting corners for us. We returned to our apartment in quiet triumph, and all agreed Melbourne needs a CapitalO.  Yet another project for the future.

Afterwards

Great news – Asha and Lani won the Australian Schools Champs, and led the Victorian team to a long awaited overall victory – the first in 9 years!  Both have been named in the Honour Team.