It was my first foray into the forest for at least 6 months, and my first Easter competition for 2 years.  So it was with a little trepidation that I headed to the start, feeling very much like I needed my training wheels on.  I was one of the last starters, and it was blazingly hot.  The terrain was mostly open (meaning not much shade) with scattered rock clusters surrounded by scratchy prickly green stuff.  Of course, most of the controls were on the rocks, which meant getting to grips with the scratchy prickly green stuff.  But in between, the going was very clear underfoot, and the vegetation boundaries were well mapped and useful to navigate from.

I went back to basics – compass bearing, check and check again.  Contours, know what to look for.  I went at my own pace, and discovered I was finding the controls with no problems  The first leg served as familiarisation with the rock and the vegetation.  Then I had a series of nice open legs, just picking the correct rock feature in mostly open, visible terrain.  I almost overshot no 6, but luckily saw the flag over my left shoulder, and checked the number. Phew – that could have been a bad error.  Turning to cross the main paddock, with a long climb that made me feel light headed, I stopped under a large tree, just for a few seconds of welcome shade.  Then down, following a veg boundary all the way.  I stopped at the drinks control for a few moments to regroup, again just from the heat.  Then another climb to another rock.  So far so good – slow and steady was getting me around cleanly. 

Next I crossed a fence, then up onto a rocky spur.  I read the feature as a smallish rock, off to the side of a large boulder cluster. I could see what I thought was the cluster, as the boulders were huge.  But no smaller rock, and no flag.  Time wasted hunting around, only to spot the flag at the end of the huge boulders.  Momentarily annoyed, I ploughed on, now on the home stretch with just 3 of 14 to get.  No 12 was easy enough, but then I had my first genuine brain fade.  Get down off the hill, cross a fence, up and over a low spur, and look for a cliff.  Only I forgot the bit about turning right, to look for a northern cliff.  Another few fruitless minutes.  The “run” in to the final control and finish chute was soft sand, hard going and interminably long.  But I finished within my expectations timewise.  I lost about 5 minutes in small errors, which would have made no difference to my usual placing at the lower end of the results screen.  But at least it wasn’t disastrous, and I am looking forward to the remaining events.