The excitement of a new bush map leaves us all feeling like kids on Christmas morning, and Smiths Creek at Ruse more than delivered for round 3 of MetrO League on Sunday.
SHOO set Stephan Wagner the task of mapping this long skinny tract of bushland and the result was a melange of white, light green, dark green and black either side of Smiths Creek - from top to bottom.
But the highlight for a handful of eagle-eyed orienteers was spotting a koala on course!
Covid restrictions forced us to start by the tennis courts to the east of the map, so the outward and inward legs were through flat, easy parklands. That merely set us up for the middle section with intricate, steepish rocky slopes at 1:10,000 that tripped up many a competitor.
A terrific addition to MetrO League venues and to SHOO's already impressive inventory, and full of State League potential when we can assemble much closer to the creek.
We'd also like to make special mention of the great results in Division 6 by debutants Tania and Emily Cannings who only joined SHOO last week and helped their team to a win over WHO.
Likewise to father and son Mark and Arthur Lusher who scored 17 points between them in Garingal's win over Big Foot. Mark got into orienteering via our lunchtime CBD promotional series a year ago.
All the results and scores are on the ML web page. Please load your routes onto Livelox.
Our next round is on Sunday September 13 at Scheyville on a new Garingal map.
Divisions 1 and 6 will now have semi-finals then a final but the other divisions will continue round robin and winners will be decided on a first past the post basis after the final round in October.
Thanks Stephan and SHOO.
