Category Orienteering in Australia
The Carnival Is Over
Day 2 saw us back in almost the same spot, just a little less distance to drive in. An earlier start was a good way to avoid the worst of the dust. A cloudless sky promised another warm day, and I was glad I was starting before 10am. The terrain notes were the same as […]
Eat My Dust
Orienteering in SA usually involves long drives on dirt road. This was no exception – we could see the dust cloud from 20 km away! It looked like mist, till we got closer. Visibility was down to zero in places. White turned out to be a poor choice of colour today. After a long, dry, […]
On the Road Again
We’re back on the road – Pete, Ilze and I headed off to South Australia for the Easter 3 days, an annual tradition. SA is one of my favourite places to orienteer – not too steep, not too thick, technical enough to be interesting without being impossible. We forget what most of Australia is like, […]
Hobart Shorts Day 3 and 4
Luckily the rain cleared out and the final races were held in fine weather. Race 4 was a park/street sprint around Battery Point and Salamanca Place – that’s more like it! Back on familiar turf. The biggest challenge was finding a parking spot in the CBD. We discovered we had no change for the parking […]
Hobart Shorts Day 2 – Acqua Alta All Over Again
Overnight the heavens opened and the rain hammered down. It eased up before dawn, but was still drizzling steadily, and Mt Wellington was nowhere to be seen. We’d planned to admire the views from Mt Nelson after the morning race, but quickly ditched that idea! Everyone huddled in their cars waiting for their start, from […]
Hobart Shorts Day 1
Our 6 event program of “short” races began today, but not until late afternoon, so we took the opportunity to visit the Tasmanian Botanic Gardens, a short drive away. The gardens are best known for “The Patch” which is a community food program that features regularly on “Gardening Australia”. But there is much more to […]
Oceania and Ocean (Rocks and More Rocks)
Next day was the Oceania Long Distance Champs. We headed north to St Helens then up a very long and tedious dusty road. My two thirds had given me some hope of a placing, but one look at the map and I knew it wasn’t going to happen. The first four controls were in the […]
Oceania Midweek
Battle was resumed over the next three days, starting with the Middle Distance champs at Avoca. This was my first foray into my new age group, W55AS. There are usually only 7-8 competitors, all like me, slower and not so agile. I know a few of them as they’ve moved up with me, but some […]
Oceania and World Cup Sprints and Relays
The action got underway at Cataract Gorge, with the World Cup sprint qualifier. The fastest 40 men and women would go through to the A final, leaving a handful to the ignominy of the B final. Sixteen countries were represented included a full Aussie contingent; the top half dozen men and women orienteers in the […]
Easter Ends
After a very welcome rest day, we steeled ourselves for the Dungaree Challenge. This involved head to head loop racing in some supposedly fast open spur-gully terrain. Turned out to be not that fast as there was a lot of fallen sticks and branches on the ground, but it was very much like Bendigo. Pete […]