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Goldseekers event at Oaky Creek on 5th August attracted 54 people on a lovely sunny morning.  Reddall Leslie had set very good courses in this popular area of native bush near Mullion Creek. Darren Francis continued his good form by winning the Hard Long course while Daniel Parton put in a good run to come third.  Daniel will be travelling to Tasmania with the NSW Schools Team to compete in the National Championships in October.

Greg Smith was the winner of the Hard Short course.  Stephen Johnson and his daughter Hannah won the popular Moderate course.  Three families came along to their first event and all successfully completed the 2.8km Easy course with the Livermore family taking first place.  Competitors had travelled from as far away as Dubbo, Rylstone, Katoomba, Bathurst and Molong. 

Thanks to Jean Baldwin for this report and photograph.

Riverside Girls High School bested the boys teams to take the title of Champion High School at the recent Northern Region Schools Championships .  Nearly 100 runners, the great majority with no prior experience, raced at the St Ives Showground last week. Coaches from Orienteering NSW worked with the youngsters through an introductory coaching session which was followed by individual courses and relays.  The delight on the students' faces and the spirit that they displayed as they cheered each other on was really uplifting.

The courses were testing but that so many did exceptionally well shows how good coaching can bring beginners on quickly.

Champion primary school was St Ives North Public School.

Other results:

1st boys relay team was Normanhurst Boys High School (Daniel Hill, Adam Halmy and Matthew Osborne)

1st girls relay team was Riverside (Emily O'Loughlin, Rosie Browell and Anne Vervoort)

1st primary relay team was Turramurra Public School (Rachel Osborne, Hannah Wilkinson and Veronica Hardman)

1st composite team was St Ives Public/Chatswood High School (Joanna Hill, Sara McDonald, Sam Wilkinson).

The behaviour of ALL 90 students was exemplary and they all competed with great spirit.

Many thanks to sponsors of the event, The Athletes Foot, St Ives who donated prizes and also to Ku-ring-gai Council for allowing the use of the fantastic venue.

Thanks to Barbara Hill for this report

More photographs of the event can be found in the North Shore Times gallery

Western Hills were in position to take three titles yesterday at the MetrOLeague finals yesterday at Mount Annan, and did in fact beat Illawarra Kareelah 34:21 points to win Division C.  However it was mighty Big Foot who took Division A and Division E from them winning strongly 30:18 and 35:20 respectively.  Garingal, despite having a massive 6 teams in the events, scored a win only in Division B beating Bennelong Northside 32:23.  Uringa mopped up the remaining division, winning D division also against a disappointed Bennelong.

The new map from Dave Lotty and SHOO of Mount Annan was a delight to run.  Sweeping grassy hillsides with small plantations of native trees made for very scenic running.  Mount Annan itself added some physicality to the map, with Course A having some 250m of climb as well as its 6.6km length, but no-one was complaining. The co-located assembly, start and finish were in a pretty glade surrounded by garden beds, which made it feel like the orienteering community had the park to itself, which apart from a few mountain bike enthusiasts, it mainly did.  Only the southern half of the map was used, which provided an opportunity for beginners and more experienced alike to run off the map on the northern edge, but also means that there is more of this fantastic map to discover in the near future.

The penultimate event in the Interclub Orienteering Series between the Waggaroos and Albury-Wodonga Orienteering Club was conducted at Mt Terrible just on the northern outskirts of Albury.  The terrain on the mountain is open but makes for slow running due to its steep and slippery slopes. The gullies looked to be easier to run along on Sunday but most were ankle deep in water which caused other problems for runners.

The longer courses zigzagged across the slopes gradually working downhill for the majority of the distance but then faced a brutal 120m vertical climb over a 600m horizontal distance which burned the lungs and turned tired legs into heavy weights.  The shorter courses mainly traversed the flatter farmland but the flatness hid pools of water and marshes. 

The WaggaRoos handled the conditions better than their Albury counterparts getting off to a good start in the 5.5km Red Course  where Alex Davey had a great run to win easily. His time was almost 20 minutes faster than the next group of participants and earned him handicap honours for the day. John Oliver (W) made a navigational mistake to the first control and dropped about 5 minutes on Albury’s Rob Simmons. Although he then had faster times than Rob to all succeeding controls he could not quite make up the deficit and had to settle for third place. Wayne Bajenoff (A) finished fourth. This gave WaggaRoos a small 6:4 points lead.

The lead was consolidated in the 4.5km Red Course contested by 5 members of each club. Waggaroos Briohny Seaman, Debbie Davey were well ahead of the main field and grasped the first two places. Wes Campbell (W) and Pauline Moore (W) finished 5th and 7th respectively to break up the five Albury participants. When Bob Moore finished WaggaRoos had collected 30 points to Albury’s 25.

Albury collected 2 points to 1 on the 3.5km Orange Course when Angela Farrell (W) darted along the wrong track and lost time to Mark McKenzie (A).

WaggaRoos won the match 38:30 and now have a strong 60:44 point lead in the competition. The final event will be held in early September near Wagga.

Thanks to John Oliver for this report