Whilst much of NSW was hunkering down under a deluge, Armidale was enjoying near perfect dry, cool and bright running conditions for the Queen’s Birthday 3 day carnival. Northern Tablelands fielded some of its finest maps for the events, and orienteers who wanted to do well had to bring their best game.
Day 1 was a Sprint Race in Armidale State Forest. Starting later in the afternoon to allow for competitors to make their way from across the State, this event had the fewest runners of the weekend. Those who did compete were treated to really enjoyable courses. Terrain was fast underfoot and fragrant with pine needles. For those who did well this was an opportunity to experience true ‘control flow’ through the checkpoints.
Day 2 and State League #6 at Mount Brown provided probably the most challenging map of the carnival. Eric Andrews, Liz Bourne and their colleagues from Queensland’s Bullecourt Boulder Bounders Orienteering Club worked with the local club to put this event on. A granite strewn hillside with patches of open and not so open, made it important to navigate carefully and stay in touch with the map. Inattention or sloppy technique was punished severely on the harder courses which had few catching features or major handrails in much of the more detailed areas.
NSW Juniors were out in force as Day 2 and 3 have been nominated as selection races for the Schools Team for Tasmania, and they couldn’t have asked for better terrain to test themselves on. Daniel Parton (GS) and Daniel Hill (GO) had a great race, with Daniel Parton getting the edge over the younger boy by only 8 seconds. Georgia Jones (UR) had a winning run in W14A after a disappointing mispunch on Day 1. Future squad members are beginning to appear in the younger age groups with Duncan Currie (GO) running up in M14A for a win, closely followed by Alastair George (BF) Some standout results amongst the other age classes included M65A Ross Barr (GO) who was fastest on the Hard 5 course whipping around in 42:23, and W65A Meredyth Sauer who was beaten to fastest on Hard 7 by W35AS Maria Orr who was only a minute ahead of her. Evening at the Armidale RSL allowed orienteers to chew over courses as well as dinner.
Day 3 at Banalasta was the Long Distance of State League #7. Fast paddock interspersed with forested granite outcroppings in this race which saw M21A running 8.8km on Hard 1 course. This set of courses was incredibly challenging and saw many competitors with times well over the 60 minute winning target, and some who battled their way around the course to times of 2 hours and more. Three days of racing scores were accumulated to set the rankings for the QB3 carnival winners. 
Full results, splits and Routegadget are available on the NTOC website
