50 years since first orienteering event in NSW

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Last Updated: Sunday, 14 November 2021 21:28

Sunday (November 14) marked 50 years since the first orienteering event in NSW.

Eleven hardy competitors (seven of them from New Zealand) made the trek to Mount Hay in the Blue Mountains for an outing that even today would test Bear Grylls' thirst for adventure.

The inaugural event was a 6.6km line course with 330m of climb, on a black-and-white government map with little more than contours and a couple of roads and tracks. The scale was 1:31,680, with 15m contours. Ouch!

ONSW life member Dave Lotty (pictured, right) is one of the originals and was in action again today at the River and Bay Series event at Earlwood, on an urban map the polar opposite of what he was confronted with five decades ago.

Mount Hay led to the formation of our first club, Bennelong, in December 1971 and what is now called Orienteering NSW in 1972. You can read the story of how the very first event came about here - with the map in full.

A massive thank you to Dave for the enthralling history lesson!