No sooner had we arrived home and recovered from Europe, than I was repacking my bags, this time for a trip to South Australia with Pete, Ilze, Tina and Vic.  The Australian Orienteering Champs were on, and having chucked in my job, I was free to go along for the ride.  No such luck for Ian who was quickly back to work.

After a week of trying to get myself back on local time, with mixed success, we left on Sunday morning for the long, boring drive up the Calder to Mildura, then over the border into Renmark in South Australia.  The highlight was our lunch stop in Wycheproof, where we found a pie shop to rival Holbrook.  Delicious flaky pastry, jam packed with local beef. Scrumptious.  After that, it was just a  grind through the small dusty wheat towns of north western Victoria. After passing the fruit fly inspection at the border, we set our watches back half an hour, and pressed on.

Having made a late decision to come, my choice of accommodation in Renmark was limited. Pete and Ilze dropped me off at my not-very-salubrious motel, where the lime green décor of the bathroom was a particular feature, then buggered off to their riverboat. Yes, they were staying on a Murray houseboat, permanently moored, and very picturesque with the lights reflecting in the river. Meanwhile I had a nice view of the gravel car park.  I joined them for an excellent dinner at the local hotel.

After a good night’s sleep, I wanted a quick shower and breakfast before meeting up with the sailors, and heading to our first event. I ran the shower for a good 10 minutes, and no hot water ensued. Not Happy Jan. It was not a good start to my morning.

Nevertheless, we drove to the nearby primary school, which was to be the venue for the Australia Sprint Champs.  Having organised these myself 3 years ago, I am always interested to see what other people do. Sprints, and to some degree relays, are the only spectator friendly events we have in orienteering, so its important to provide for that.  We had a nice shady, grassy arena, from where we could watch confused competitors in the most complex section of the map, so good job by the organisers on that front.  The school itself wasn’t particularly complex, and courses were straightforward, favouring runners rather than map readers.  Having said that, I navigated perfectly through the buildings, then went horribly wrong in the small section of open running midway through, losing about 3 minutes by overshooting a control, then mucking up the next one completely. After that my lack of fitness showed and I was very slow through the second half. It was a hot, sunny afternoon, and I was glad to finish.  It was good fun, but a pretty standard sprint course without a lot of challenge. They used tape to try and provide additional complexity, but it didn’t really add much value.

We left Renmark and the riverland behind, and headed south to the Baossa Valley, one of my favourite places.  After a couple of hours we started seeing rolling green hills and grape vines, with stone cottages and small churches dotting the landscape. The German names for roads, villages and wineries told us we were in “European” South Australia, though the eucalpypts and river red gums reminded us that we are still in the Southern hemisphere.

We are staying on an 80 acre property called Martinsell, close to Mt Crawford.  It has sheep, vines, and large spreading trees.  We are staying in the old shearing shed, renovated to a comfortable 3 bedroom cottage, and lovely views from the kitchen window.  The owners have only been here for two years, and have done a lot of renovating.  They live in The Manor, a large Georgian house a little further up the hill. They were keen to offer us a tour of the property the following morning.

We duly met them at 10am today, and inspected the shearing shed which is underneath us. Vic’s eyes lit up when he saw the slabs of redgum timber, but they are too big to fit in his Subaru!  We had a pleasant hour or so wandering around the property and through the ground floor of The Manor, learning that Alexander Downer (well known SA politician) spent his childhood here with his family.

Then it was off to suburban Adelaide for our next event, another sprint. This one was quite different to the previous day. The school was small, but very complex with lots of stairs and multi levels, and small details to read.  It favoured the map readers rather than the runners, as you couldn’t run very far without changing direction or checking the map for the umpteenth time.  The entire course was right in the campus, with no dead open legs across ovals.  We had a map change halfway through. It was tricky right from the first control, and didn’t let up at all. I took a cautious approach, keen not to make any errors.  This strategy worked all the way until my 17^th control of 20, when I went astray and spent way too long relocating.  Even after that, I finished a creditable midfield, so was happy with that.

Tomorrow we are on a map just up the road from our cottage – literally less than 500 metres away. Which means we can sleep in. Yay! Unless we are woken up by cockatoos.