I thought yesterday was wet, but overnight it just didn’t stop, and there was no sign of it letting up today.  The forecast was for “rain periods, heavy at times”, and this turned out to be all too accurate. Meanwhile back home, events are being cancelled due to extreme heat.  A compromise would be nice – some sun for us, and some rain for my long suffering plants.

Race 3 was in Napier.  Most of Napier is flat, nestled beside the Pacific Ocean.  But right at the northern tip lies Bluff Hill, a vertical edifice covered in narrow streets that climb tortuously .  The event centre was at the bottom, and they sent us on a long steep climb just to get to the start, at Sacred Girls College, perched on top of the hill.  I was first starter (by virtue of being at the bottom of the results) so had the honour of leading everyone into the school grounds.

It only took one glance at the map to realise that we were in for some truly technical orienteering.  I could not see a clear way to my first control – the only accesses were via miniscule gaps in otherwise uncrossable walls or fences.  Somewhat flummoxed, I made my way down a series of ramps and stairs, eventually stumbling across the tiny entrance to the area where the control was.  By now the next starters had caught me.  No 2 was equally difficult, positioned in a tiny garden bed a level below where I, and three other bemused competitors, were standing.  The only way to get at it was to swing under a fence railing, and drop down over the edge of a wall.  A careful check of the map showed that none of this was mapped as out of bounds, so that’s what we did, even though it felt wrong.

The next four controls were equally tricky, but I was learning how the game was played.  You had to read every piece of fine detail, to a degree I’ve never had to do before.  There were multiple levels, and the controls could be on any one of them.  A myriad of thick black lines prevented any sort of open running, and everyone was making their way around very carefully.

After no 6, we headed out into the street for a long downhill run, then back into another technical area. Margi and I had teamed up by now, hunting in a pair.  Gradually we made our way through the next 4 or 5 controls, then another long steep downhill on a slippery narrow lane brought us onto the last section of the course.  By now we’d been going for over 30 minutes, with plenty of ground still to cover.

From here it was pretty much pure streetO, up and down some significantly steep hills.  The last little section was great fun, into a tiny park with a wooden bridge and cascading waterfall.  Then into the finish chute and home, about 45 minutes after starting!  Classic “New Zealand” sprint.  The course setters could easily have left off some of the street running, and just used the technical areas.  It was still heaps of fun, a great challenge, and running in the downpour was reminiscent of Venice (minus the canals, bridges and gondolas of course).    All three of us got round unscathed, and have so far avoided the dreaded mispunch.

This was our last race in the Napier vicinity – the next three are all down our end of the bay.  It was a luxury to go home for lunch, strip off wet clothes, have a nap/write this, and saunter casually over to the start, which was about 2 minutes’ walk from our front door.  Prior to that, we watched a wedding taking place across the street, from our 2^nd storey window.  The poor bride had picked a terrible day, but the rain held off while she got out of the limo, at least.

By the time we got to the event centre, the rain was tumbling down again.  Start lists weren’t up, and everything had been delayed by 30 minutes.  No worries – as soon as we found out our start times, we all headed back to our apartment, with Ted, Margi and Geoff in tow, to sit down in comfort and dryness for 45 minutes or so.  Sadly, we got to the point where we could no longer delay the inevitable, so it was back out into the rain.  We were soaked by the time we reached the start, but once again it stopped for most of the actual race.

We were in another school, Hereworth, but this was much less complex than this morning’s.  I over-ran the first control, as it was behind a wall and I didn’t see it till I’d gone a few metres past.  Then had a very clean run through the next 8 controls, all in the school buildings, and all quite straightforward. I was reading ahead for the first time this weekend so I knew my head was in the map.  I also knew Margi was only 2 minutes behind so I hoped I wouldn’t see her.

Then came the error – I had to run to the corner of a tennis court, but I went to the wrong one and had to double back a fair distance.  Later, I found out there was a much better route choice, but I’d had my map folded in such a way that I didn’t see it at all.  Margi gained ground and was just behind me on the sprint leg.  I held her off through the next couple of controls, but then went from 13 to 15. Realising my error, I had to correct back to 14, and that let Margi catch me.  Despite the mistakes, I finished nearly 3 minutes ahead of someone, so finally got off the bottom of the list!

Again I really enjoyed the course, in spite of the downpours that plagued us all afternoon.  But the organisers made another big stuff up – they had to remove a control that couldn’t be positioned properly because of a locked gate.  It affected courses 4 and 6, but only course 4 was told about it.  Ilze was on course 6, and no-one on that course was told to leave it out.  So of course they all lost loads of time hunting for it.  The maps have been very high quality, and the course setting excellent, but there have been a lot of preventable organisational errors.  Though I am pleased to say that they’ve finally sorted out the results from yesterday, and my time has now been adjusted properly.  As a result, I gained 4 places for race 2 and got back 2 minutes.  Hooray!

Tomorrow morning is the dreaded “mountain stage” – we’ll all be glad to have that one behind us.