Orienteering NSW

Coming Events

map	Sun 3 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #2 - Randwick Over the Rainbow, Randwick

map	Wed 6 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #5 - Lindfield Primula Oval, Lindfield.

map	Wed 6 Nov 5:00 pm Newcastle Summer Street Series #4 - Blackalls Park Blackalls Park

map	Thu 7 Nov 5:00 pm Summer series #1 72 Ross Street

map	Fri 8 Nov 5:30 pm Goldseekers Park #2 - Gosling Creek Gosling Creek

map	Sat 9 Nov 9:30 am SOS 4 Gore Hill Oval, 209 Pacific Highway, St Leonards. Meet by the oval car park and playground.

map	Sat 9 Nov 10:00 am Illawarra Map Running Series - Spring #4 Unanderra Lindsay Maynes Park, cnr Princes Highway & Factory Rd, Unanderra

map	Sun 10 Nov 9:00 am Central Coast Summer Series 1 - Shelly Beach Naomi Honey Reserve, Shelly Beach Rd, Shelly Beach

map	Sun 10 Nov 4:00 pm River and Bay Series #3 - Canterbury The Gallops, Tasker park, Phillips Avenue Canterbury

map	Wed 13 Nov 4:30 pm 2024/25 Sydney Summer Series #6 - Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, Camperdown.

Congratulations to Waggaroos president John Oliver who recently became the first NSW orienteer to notch up 50 years in the sport.

John started in 1969 at a promotional event in Melbourne, attended his first Australian champs in 1971, and represented Australia at the world champs in 1974, 1976 and 1978 when they were staged every second year.

Today he's as busy as ever: mapping local schools and conducting programs, setting club courses, organising the annual regional schools champs, and steering one of our smallest clubs that nevertheless punches well above its weight.

(Waggaroos were the inaugural winners of the ONSW Club of the Year trophy in 1994, and were awarded it again last year for their work in co-hosting the 2019 Oceania championships with ACT. John is pictured, left, with Alex Davey.)

John has done just about everything in orienteering - except win an individual national championship. There's still plenty of time!

In his younger days he was a steeplechaser who used cross country running and then orienteering to maintain fitness between track seasons. Soon he was hooked on the navigation and the calendar was turned on its head.

And the early days of O were arguably much tougher than today: black and white ordnance maps at 1:25,000, buckets instead of the now distinctive orange-white flags, and control descriptions that were often at the whim of the course setter.

Compare that with today's standardised map specifications, symbols and use of electronic timing!

John has kindly compiled a biog of his life in the sport. You can read it here. Another legend of our sport still going strong.

All this weekend's events have been cancelled or postponed, due to the NSW government now recommending against travel between zones/regions for community sport.

We are naturally disappointed that sport has been singled out for these further restrictions, and ask everyone to please follow all covid protocols no matter where they are or what they are doing.

Please check Eventor to see how and when events will be conducted over the next six weeks.

State Leagues 2-3 and the NSW Schools Champs have been cancelled.

Our covid web page has been updated with the latest ONSW safety plan.

Sad? Don't forget the many permanent courses around the state where you can get your O fix.

And our rogaining cousins have posted some previous events on MapRun.

Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Wagga enjoyed big attendances for events on Sunday as people relished sunny weather and being outdoors.

The HOGs had their first event since covid restrictions eased, with two line courses at Town Beach - and attracted 83 participants. Most of these are young families who are loving what our newest club is doing on the mid north coast.

President Matt Bell won the Long course while Ben Oakeshott, son of former federal MP Rob, took out the Easy course.

A little further south, Newcastle drew 132 runners to NOY 3 at Fairley Dams. This is a great turnout considering it clashed with a MetrO League event in Sydney. Nice too to see more than two dozen casuals having a run.

In Wagga, numbers swelled to 37 at Wolfram - the highest for quite a while at a one of our smallest clubs.

On the Hard courses route choice decisions were paramount - climb the steep hill or contour around, go through the scrub or circumvent it.

The Moderate and Easy courses were ideal for newbies and much of the forest was open with many wildflowers and orchids just opening up which provided a very enjoyable and pleasant Sunday morning experience.

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.

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