This mornings orienteering event on the 12 Mile map about 12 kms west of Queenstown was supposed to be a low key follow up event after the New Zealand National championships.

When Shakespeare’s King Henry was exhorting his troops to once more storm the breach in the  walls of the Castle at Agincourt, little did he know that more that 500 years later a bunch of hardy orienteers had gathered, stiffened their sinews, summoned  up their blood and lending the eye a terrible aspect had imitated the actions of a Tyger and stormed across the Ithlien and into the beech forest. He also did not know that many of the scenes from the Lord of the Ring were filmed here.

At this point we need to explain that the course setter was an Adventure Racer who seemed to have temporarily taken  leave of his senses as after a few controls scratching around in the forest he decided to send everybody on the longer course across a fast flowing stream in a ravine. What was he thinking came the cry, where was his safety management plan, does he have public liability insurance, doesn’t he know that the sentence for culpable homicide caused by negligence us usually 10 to 12 years with time for good behaviour. (A not entirely fatuous remark. Ed.)

Plunging into the water between control 6 to 7, knee to thigh deep and icy cold I was gifted with the sight of my map hurling down a category 5 rapid towards the Tasman sea.

Mapless from then on I was reduced to practicing European Orienting styles, following people, punching any control you came to and begging people for a look at their map. I actually made it to the finish and was then told I had missed one. ” One” I cried, “that’s not bad seeing I didn’t have a map”

My pleas fell on deaf ears.

So in the words of King of the Roharim as he gazed down on the orcs gathered on the Pelanore plain between the Ithlien and the walls of Minis Titith, “How did it come to this.”

Anyway, “with the blast of war ringing in our ears” we trooped off to Arrowtown and soothed our selves with a refreshing hokey-pokey ice-cream in a waffle cone in an attempt to restore our “modesty, stillness and humility”

Pete.

(With apologies to W Shakespeare and J.R.R. Tolkein and none to the course setter.)