This was it – the big one, the culmination of two weeks of intense orienteering.  The race of truth.  The moment we’d been training for.  OK perhaps I exaggerate … but World Masters finals don’t come around all that often unless you can afford to travel to Europe.   We’ve had Melbourne in 2002, Sydney in 2009, and now Auckland.

Of course the pressure was relieved significantly by being in the B final rather than the A, but I wanted my record of 11 races without a mispunch to remain intact.  The two qualifiers had been pretty tough, and I felt I was only just getting the hang of sand dune orienteering. It was time to put what I’d learned into practice.

Much to my surprise, I wasn’t last starter, or anywhere near.  The Womens 55 age class had fallen to a war of attrition, with a large number of mispunches, DNFs, and DNSs.  The system is pretty touch – one mispunch in either qualifier puts you completely out of contention, and you compete in the final as unofficial, starting in the first block.  After that, those who completed both qualifiers are ranked on finish position, and started in reverse order so the fastest go last.  I started well into the draw in the B final.

Rain had fallen all morning, and the arena was full of damp orienteers huddled under raincoats, tarps, garbage bags or makeshift tarps.  As I headed off to my last Start, the rain stopped and there was a glimmer of sunshine.

For me it was the longest race of the two weeks, at just under 4 km.  However it wasn’t the toughest.  The contours were more like the first qualifier than the second, thank goodness.  Leaving the start triangle, the first thing I checked was the smaller tracks, as being able to pick these up had proved critical so far.  They were quite faint on the ground so I chose not to use them, instead using large contour features to navigate by.  It was pointless trying to read every single mound and depression, so I followed careful compass bearings and ticked off the big, recognisable stuff, as well as using the distinct vegetation boundaries.  Oh, and the conveniently positioned drink stations (its about time Australia adopted the method used by all other countries and put these on tracks, away from controls).

This technique served me well for the first 6 controls as I slowly and steadily made my way around.  I realised I was reading the dunes more readily, not just relying on a bearing and a bit of dumb luck.  Then it all came unstuck at no 7, a very complex little area in green vegetation. Lots of others were milling round bemused, and I quickly joined them.  I wandered around in a circle, eventually finding a nearby track.  Spotting a couple of purposeful W55 competitors emerging from the shrubbery, I backtracked in on their line and found it easily.  I overshot no 8, climbing too high up a hill.  From there the rest were easy and I picked off the last 5 with no problems.

Now for the finish chute – it was 200 metres long, in deep soft sand.  It circled the entire arena and passed under all the country flags, as is traditional.  Running full pelt was of course obligatory!  I finally crossed the finish line, punched, and downloaded –clear!  It was all over.

The result?  25^th out of 60 “B” finalists, relatively respectable all things considered.  I felt I had learned a lot about a different type of terrain, and in future I could approach it with more confidence.

All that was left to do was to scrub our O shoes, wash the sand off ourselves, pack our wet clothes away, and head to the airport.  All I will say about that is that someone needs to tell google that the new tunnel is NOT yet open …  several U turns and many rude words directed at the GPS lady ensued.  Finally – home sweet home.