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This blog covers he last 3 days – for the much diminished group remaining.

Thursday was a low key event on Harding’s Paddock (which was in fact mostly bush) a little south of Ipswich. The map is in the gallery below. A tricky course that lulled you into a false sense of security. A few of us had trouble even on control 1. The other trick was finding the way through the deep green Lantana around the creek. I ended used the dry sandy blue creeks themselves because I couldn’t find the secret path shown to the far west that was harder to find than it looks ! Ewen had a really good event, coming close to my time despite a lower speed. Sausages & drinks after were part of the deal. Still quite warm.

Apparently there is a group of retirees who run events every Thursday for themselves, and others such as Uni students & proffessors also occasionally make an appearance. Rod of this group gave Suzanne and myself a lift to Brisbane when Ewen went back to Stanthorpe to rescue Henk (who is feeling better by the way).

Suzanne & I clambered around Mt Coutha on Friday after being dropped off at the top cafe by Ian, my brother on his way into work. Birthday dinner in Toowong joined by Henk & Ewen.

Today the sprint events were a lot of fun. They were the tricky navigational universitycampus types that really keep you thinking hard the whole way. Apologies in advance for the dodgy map quality in my photos. For a start they were fairly hard to read anyway, but the morning event at the Kelvin Grove QUT campus on Pretex was a lot better than the afternoon, very dark printing, map on plastic bagged paper UQ St Lucia campus.

In the morning we competed in our normal age groups, and I managed a 4th, almost a 3rd place, but for a 30 sec error I made punching a later control 11 on my way to 9 (I have a bit of an unfortunate  habit of this). Suzanne had a good run against a very competitive field who would probably do very well against the Elites. A hard, but very brief tropical rain shower doused her just after she started. Ewen had a ‘mp’ which he was a bit bamboozeld by, till he got the map and realised he’d just missed 8 altogether.

In the afternoon we all did a Sunley. Doing a Sunley entails entering Elites in a sprint, even though hopelessly outclassed, just to get a decent run. However, we also took the precaution of entering in disguise. Suzanne (Ingrid, lisped with an outrageous scandanavian accent) had flowing golden locks, Ewen made a pretty below par attempt at Elvis impersonation, and my super-sized afro bore an unintentional but convincing resemblance to a certain Elite called David Sheppard. The other thing you should also note when doing a Sunley is whether the 2 sprints on the 1 day are actually part of the same event (ooops), so they ended up putting us at the end of the chasing starts, after all the morning mp Elites. We also had a very minature Warren Key in Elites (Warren had mp’d in the morning so gave Ashton a go in the afternoon instead; and lil-Warren beat me, as it turns out).

I actually made a pretty good bash at this event, and had I not been tricked by a ‘switch’ control to go direct 7 -> 8/12 -> 13 (the map was very dark and 8/12 -> were in a direct line so an understandable mistake in retrospect, that others also made on my 1b varient), I wouldn’t actually have been last. Oh well, missing out 9,10,11,12 loop is a definite mp. Lil Warren (Ashton) did M21E in 32 minutes, and he is only 10 or something ! Ingrid had the same ‘switch’ control, but was more cautious and finished the W21E sprint properly, complete with the aforementioned much admired golden plaits swinging about. Elvis took his 50 minutes cautiously, but also left the building with an M21E under his ample belt.

Henk was picked up by his sister, and we now have a hire car, picked up with some jiggery pokery at midday today. At least it means we can get to the last event tomorrow. Why they didn’t have the Brisbane sprints on Sunday I have no idea !?

Here’s an edited video of Day 1 Sledge mass start. Unfortunately still quite jerky (David Stratten would be unimpressed), but the raw footage is far worse!). http://youtu.be/dR1_elwgwuA

Rest day yesterday, and most of us needed it after the 4 days of rock & seeds.

Yesterday, many went to visit the Girraween National park a few km south of Stanthorpe, followed by a relaxed lunch at the Stage Coach Cafe, then a quick Winery visit to Symphony Hill. We’d tried the earlier nights winnings and decided not to visit Summit wines, but Robert Channon winery might also be worth a visit, which we did after the event today.

Some pictures of the National Park are in the gallery.

Take a peek at the Cascades map from this morning. Wow, what an inticate masterpiece ! There were mixed O results today, ranging from “I’ll never go here again”, to “that was really quite fun”. My own experience was more in the latter category. There weren’t any age groups today; people had just entered whatever course length and navigational difficulty they thought they would like to do. Like street-O. I’ve had a belief for quite a while that Vic State Series events should all be like this. You compete against people of all ages, but similar abilitites. It avoids small age groupings with only a handful (or just one !) person.

Most courses featured one or two long hard legs in them (see map below), which tripped up some, but everyone finished their course, despite some being of the epic variety. There was lots of grey that was mapped so well it was a bit like street orieteering in Kensington, till you had to cross the shrubbery barriers !  The white was fairly thick in places, but not as seedy as other days, so it was great to not have to spend the hours de-seeding various bits of clothing today.

Given the high class of those finishing above me in Red 3, such as Nick Dent, and many notable names below me, such as Isabelle Wymer (2nd over Easter 3 days), the ever average Russell Blatchford, Easter Day 2 course setter David Firman, and John Scown (who caught me on the 1st control), I was quite happy with my 4th place. Suzanne did well on her super long 4th leg in Red 5, but was too tired to navigate properly for the next few controls. Still, she still beat John Sheahan who started well but had some grief on the long leg. Mark Besley had the same long leg as Suzanne, but did a commendable multi-faceted noodle on arrival near the control circle. Very picturesque !

The afternoon in the sun, a bit cooler today, was spent at a winery, a cheese factory and a berry farm place called the The Bramble Patch (yummy raspberry and boisenberry ice cream mixed on the spot).

Most of us leave Stanthorpe tomorrow and head north to near Ipswich. Mark heads home towards Melbourne carting the very valuable grape based cargo.

Last day of Easter 3 Days, the final day of reckoning of the cummulative event.

At least we weren’t to be blessed with Lantana-land today, but instead much more prickly and persistant grass seeds Probably a bit hillier than Day 1, with lots of rocky outcrops. It was located north of Stanthorpe, but not as far as the Warwick event yesterday. Again the weather was hot, high 20’s, as it has been for all of Easter so far.

So what happened of note today ?

W45AS: Phillippa Collins made up her 13s behind, and a bit more, and ended up leading her field by about 30s overall for the 3 days. Anne Robinson also had a good day to end up mid field 9th overall. Suzanne O’Callaghan continued her consistant and reliable navigation, especially today, to end up 5th overall.

M16: Remarkably, after his 30 minute epic control yesterday, Nick Collins had a near perfect run today to regain 2nd place overall. Peter Collins was also happy with his run and ended up mid-field. The Collins will probably be reading this blog as they trek home tomorrow to Parkes then Melbourne, and will no doubt leave a comment.

Sledge: I had a pretty average day. After a good start with safe navigation, I ended up catching a number of other Sledgers. This is generally not a good thing because they aren’t always accurate ! I was sure they were heading the wrong way up a spur to #5, but I also wasn’t sufficiently confident to stay my own coures in the very vague rocks, so half-way in between wasn’t much use 🙂 Another mistaken trak on the way to #9 also lost me a few more minutes. Even didn’t come near on the finish split, despite really trying hard on the downhill chute: 27s > 22s winner. Ended up 8th overall, which was exactly middleof the Sledge field. The Perfect Sledger ?

The Sledge presentations were the most amusing, with much celebratory bubbly drink spurted over the various division winners for today. See map below. Who is going to coordinate Sledge within BG at Easter 2013 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac-IylCy3PI&feature=youtu.be

M45AS: Mark Besley considered the 1st control so hard that if the rest of the course was liike that he’d be out there for 3 hour. Couple of nav errors but he finished the course in about half  his predicted time. Unfortuanely for Stephen Collins, he did take just under 3 hours on a challenging adventure.

W Open B: Tina Smith took out this division. Now she can have her knee operation (but after the Aust. Rogaine champs !).

Wymer Family: Every member won a place in their division!  See photos.

W70A:  Helen Alexander finally coming good with a much more pleasing 3rd place today, but unfortunately not good enough to help much for her overall result.

A pretty well organised and challenging carnival from the Queensland clubs.

Tim leaves us today, and the Collins head off tomorrow in their brand new Skoda. For the rest, we have some more adventures to come. The mysteriously named “Cascades”….

PS: Leave a comment if you have enjoyed reading these blogs.

Previous Days:

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-prologue/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-1/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-2/

All trekked north past Warwick for today’s event. The rocks were ditched, but replaced by the even less pleasant Lantana (and other weeds). Even prickly pears made an appearance.

At first it all seemed much easier than yesterdy, and most of the earlier legs were faster running. Perhaps those oreinteers we’d seen returning from early runs covered in sticky seeds has just all taken really poor route choices ? This was all to lull us into  false sense of security as the  lack of easier discerned features and the weed took their toll.

Nick Collins was going great guns till his control 4, which turned into a 30 minute nightmare excursion into Lantana-land. David Knight took a different route chice to that same control, and was deeply scared he would lose contact with the map. Luckily the D.Knight magic compass came to the rescue and he went over the spur was praying would be there, along a subtle border between nearly inpenetrable and completely inpenetrable Lantana to nail the control. Peter Collins fared better than both Nick and Dad, and managed to soundly beat them both with a good overall result. Incidentally, this same zone was the downfall of Warren Key, who, hard to believe, actually admits being “completely lost; no idea where I was”. Perhaps Rowdy Flat has to demoted the second most technically challenging map in Australia ?

Helen Alexander fared better than yesterday, but still lags the ultra competitive W70 field. Phillippa Collins also fared very well today, pushing up to be only 13s from the leader. I, on the other hand, plummetted from 3rd to 7th in Sledge, after 2 consecutive poor legs wandering around subtle parallel features wasting many minutes. Ewen Templeton mucked up his usual 1 control on his course, so remains happy with his event.

The Elites were all coming in very late, having experienced a gruelling Lantana laden epic.

There was no Sledge presentation today; perhaps the organisers were just worn out after the extra heat and tiredness of the returning Elites. I know the fastest finish split was 16s, way below my 24s (my excuse is someone got in the way!).

Tomorrow is back in the Stanthorpe area, after the O dinner tonight.

Today was the 1st of the 3 day Easter Australian orienteering competition.The results from the races on the 3 days are added together, so you stuff upone of them your chances of doing well are almost dashed.
Nick Collins had a wonderful run in the rocky and subtly varying terrain, getting all the way to the top of the M16 running board. Younger brother Peter also did well in mid-field. Dad had an extra value day spending over 3 hours out with a 40 minute epic leg. Unfortunately for M17 Angus Robinson, a foot injury from yesterday was just too much and he decided to throw it in at his 3rd control. Mother Anne, however, battled it out with Phillippa Collins.

Mark Besley comments that he found the map lacking obvious features once you get away from the rocky areas. Also the plethora of finish punches for different courses caught out many assuming everyone would have the last contol. Very cleverly they all shared a similar control description, so heading to the wrong one could be quite convincing. Some of the vegetation seemed thicker than mapped, wheras other vegetation boundaries were very vague.
Ewen and Henk were both happy to not finish last, but finish, which bearing in mind it’sa 3 day race is important. Suzanne was very happy and proud ofher 6th place.

Sledge course is a fun course open to anyone who wants to be in it, any age or sex. This year there was quite a contingent of girls, myself, various ex-elites or couldabeens and a junior boy (another Neuman !). One Day 1, the tradition is a mass start for all sledgers all on the same course. This produces a very fast event with various packs forming, breaking and re-forming. I took video footage of the 1st few stages and basically hadn’t much of a clue where I was for much of the 1st leg, so had to follow the crowd as the pack got it wrong. I decided a bit more navigation was probably a priority, and in fact I was pretty convinced the pack had got it wrong on the 3rd control, and since I spotted it first I was leading sledge for much of the next leg. My routes were often different for many of the following legs, but I kept re-joining one of the packs as we closed in. However I lost them behind on the 2nd last leg and was on my own for the finish split, which I won with 8s. Overall 3rd in Sledge !

More Sledge:http://www.easter2012.com.au/sledge-competition.html

For winning the finish split I have to wear some green boxers tomorrow. Other possible sledge prizes are fastest downhill, uphill and shortest legs and slowest overall time. Recognising there are many girls doing sledge now, there is a mix of boxers and nighties for the various achievements, so one of the boys looks very fetching in the polka-dot nighty he’ll have to wear tomorrow.
My video is being (possibly?) edited by the carnival organisers andI’ll put a link here when I know.

Today was the 1st day of competition as part of the whole orienteering carnival in Stanthorpe, Queensland.

Victorians arrrived by car from Vic, or plane & car from Brisbane mainly yesterday and today.

This first day is not really part of the 3-Days, more just a warm up.

The family relays had amongst them the Collins, Key and Wymer families, all who performed extremely well. Peter Collins bet he would finish the medium course before his Mum, Phillipa on the short course. Phillipa, howver, was having none of it, finishing minutes ahead of Peter, despite his very credible 22 minutes (11th overall on the medium course). Eddie Wymer did the best Long course time. Nick at spectator

The rest of us chose from short, medium or long courses. It was an interseting map with large open areas interspersed with surprisingly tricky rocky outcrops and forested strips. It wasn’t overly hard, but had to be run at almost sprint course speeds to

do well, so you could think of it as a hard nav bush sprint. Map is shown here. Nearly everyone did something silly at some point along the course, so it’s not as easy as it might seem at first glance.

Just had a BBQ at the hotel here because nearly everything is shut here on Good Friday.

Tomorrow the 3 days starts in earnest, so I’m leaving Fred to use my bed,and annoy Mark & Ewen, and I’m moving out to a tent !