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Northern Tablelands hosted a club event on Mount Brown this weekend. A great map by Queensland's Eric Andrew, this was the first time it had been used for a club event, having been first used at the Christmas 5 days in 2010. Mount Brown provides interesting granite on the upper slopes and runnable farmland and bush lower down. Being largely ungrazed the area is characterised by kangaroos and 'Farmer's Friend', a European native grass which grows as high as an adult, with long black seeds that like to detach onto a certain type of orienteering clothing. Kas Gregory was on form winning the Long Red, a good warm up before he heads off to Beechworth with the NSW Junior Squad next week.
Geoff Todkill of Newcastle Orienteers was the course setter for the 35th Hunter Valley Schools Championships which took place on Monday 27th June. Nearly 100 students from ten different schools took part, many of whom were new or had limited orienteering experience, but all tackled the courses with enthusiasm. Hunter River High took the championship title this year for the first time. Along with their podium places, winners were awarded an entry voucher to a future weekend event. A large contingent of volunteers from local clubs were on hand to help but missing this year was Denis Lyons, who has been at nearly all of the Hunter Valley Champs for the last 30 years. He is recovering from illness and the team look forward to seeing him back for more next year.
Waggaroos had a good day in the 3rd event of the Interclub Challenge Series against Albury snatching a six point lead to level the points score with one event to go.
Held in the Livingstone State Conservation Area competitors were challenged with technically difficult courses, steep hills and undergrowth. John Oliver winning the 6.6km Red course gave the WaggaRoos an early lead. Although there were fine chasing runs by Albury's Rick Armstrong, Matt Flower and Rob Simmons, the Challenge rules are such that points are scored for an equal number of participants and as John was the only runner for the Waggaroos on the Red course, only Rick Armstrong's effort scored points.
Good scoring for the WaggaRoos continued in the 4.1km Red course, as though Albury took out the first place, WaggaRoos took the next three places giving a handy score of 12:9. Angela Farrell and Kath Oliver completed an excellent day by taking first place in the 3.8km and 2.4km races, leaving a final score for this event at 18:12 in favour of WaggaRoos and tieing the series at 62 points each. The final important decider will be contested on July 31 near Gerogery.
Thanks to John Oliver for this report.
The 7th annual Turkey Trot saw sensational weather and a record number of participants. This year the Trot started out from Gilbert Road, near the Castle Hill showground and had three courses, Long 16.1km, Medium 11.1km and Short 7.3km. All the courses are designed to be runners courses, which is to say technically straightforward, being set around Green standard and beginning with a mass start for each course. Competitors on all courses finish on the same three controls, which results in a stream of competitors ‘Turkey Trotting’ into the finish.
Glen Horrocks and Lisa Grant, recent mixed team winners of the Paddy Pallin 6hr Rogaine, won the Long courses with Middle courses being won by Graeme McLeod and Linda Sesta. The Short course saw ONSW Marketing man, Ian Jessup, hold off the challenge from NSW Junior squad member, Lawrence Jones.
Georgia Jones, winner of the women's Short course, said she was determined to come in before Garingal's junior Duncan Currie who had been running turkey neck and neck with her around the latter part of the course; she succeeded by a scant 3 seconds.
