Turning the Hut into a palace!
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 11 September 2012 12:15
The Hut received more attention recently when Peter Howe, Dave Lotty and Kev Curby spent two days on upgrading work. It was a chilly work detail as Friday afternoon brought a short shower of hail which covered everything with a white layer and looked just like a snow fall. The air temperature was so low that the cover remained until well after the sun came up the next morning.
The weekend’s work included sealing off the fireplaces, removing the old sink and laying replacement carpet in one of the bedrooms, installing smoke alarm detectors in the hall and making a new manhole cover for the ceiling in the hall. In the kitchen, an additional cupboard for saucepans has been put beside the stove and a fire extinguisher next to the doorway. As well as improving safety this work will make the Hut a much more pleasant place to overnight.
Thanks to Kevin Curby for this report
NSW Championships sets worthy challenges
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 11 September 2012 12:01
Goldseekers and Bennelong Northside were the hosts for State Leagues 12&13 held over the weekend near Orange. Two top quality maps were lined up for the 2012 NSW Middle and Long Distance Championships providing a treat of runnable eucalypt and granite outcroppings. Saturday’s Middle Distance event at Kahli’s rocks was well planned, and highly enjoyable. Cold winds made for a chilly start to the race which began in an area of paddocks and open runnable forest before competitors plunged into a ridge of complex granite. Winning times were around 30-40 minutes showing that planner Jean Baldwin had judged the difficulty and terrain pretty much perfectly for the Middle Distance courses. Course printing caused some problems for competitors unused to the IOF standard Purple. Purple is used to prevent those suffering from colour blindness from being disadvantaged but where control circles are in granite terrain (bare rock (grey) and rock features (Black), control circles and numbers in (IOF standard) purple can be difficult to see, which resulted in some missed punching.
NSW Head Coach, Nick Dent, described Long Distance map Gumble Pinnacles as ‘one of the top maps in Australia for elite orienteering’ and it certainly posed a fair set of difficult navigational questions to the field. Of those who did conquer the terrain, over a 1/3 of the non-elites were out on the course for longer than planned. Josh Blatchford (Newcastle) won the M21A (Hard 1) with Australian international Grace Crane (Australopers) winning W21A and topping the Hard 3 course in 77:12. Jock Davis of Big Foot won M35A (Hard 2), Graham Turner (Red Roos) M45A (Hard 4), Michael Burton M50A (Big Foot) (Hard 5) with Eoin Rothery (Big Foot) having a fantastic run winning M55A and Hard 6 in a mere 50:47. Steve Flick of Bennelong showed many a runner younger than himself on Hard 7 how it should be done to win his class M65A and the course. Newcastle President Andrew Power took the honours in M45AS and Course Hard 8 while Barry Hanlon M75A (Western Hills) topped the last of the hard courses, Course 9, to win in 55: 26. Amongst the female winners was ACT Red Roos star Anita Scherrer W40A, Michele Dawson (Garingal) W18A and Gayle Quantock (Newcastle) W50A who were within a minute of each other on course Hard 7 and new Garingal member and Finnish national Paula Savolainen who won W45A in 70:02.
Final details for 'Back to Granite' now available
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 04 September 2012 12:49
The 'Back to Granite' weekend hosted by Goldseekers Orienteers and Bennelong Northside Orienteers promises to bring some exciting competition and great terrain together.
Saturday sees the NSW Middle Distance Championships being contested at Kahli's Rocks near Vittoria, with a map which combines open farmland with native forest liberally sprinkled with granite outcrops for some devilish detail. Bennelong's event at Gumble Pinnacles is the NSW Long Distance Championships, is the second map of the weekend from Eric Andrews, well known mapper who brings a real artistry to representing rock features.
Final details for this weekend's State League events are now available online here. Entry on the Day courses will be available for Very Easy, Easy, Moderate and Hard courses (Sat Hard 7, Sun Hard 6)
Spooks in the Park launched
- Last Updated: Tuesday, 04 September 2012 12:07
Spooks in the Park is an exciting new joint venture between ONSW and Centennial Park in Sydney to raise funds for both organisations.
Spooks in the Park is a Halloween themed orienteering course on 27th October from 1200-1800hrs for children where at each control site there is a spooky game to play. Some of the games include a coconut shy where the coconuts are skulls and the balls are eyeballs, a zombie run, a ‘test of terror’ and a giant spiders web to crawl through. As well as drawing together two great partners to deliver the event, local schools are also getting involved, with some of Ascham School's Duke of Edinburgh scheme students joining in the fun to help on the day.
Tickets are available online now
