Latest ONSW News

We hope you had a relaxing break over Christmas and New Year. There's already lots happening around NSW and plenty of big weekends of orienteering on the horizon.

The Sydney Sprints and Central Coast's Summer Series are already underway for 2018, while SHOO's Summer Sats kick off this Saturday afternoon at Harrington Park.

Further down the track we look forward in particular to our annual highlights:

* Mar 10-11 - the O'Shea 2-Days on the Central Coast

* Mar 30-April 2 - the Easter carnival in Tasmania (entries are already open)

* Apr 21-22 - the NSW Middle and Long Championships near Armidale

* Jun 9-11 - the QB III carnival is this year in Clandulla

* Sep 1-2 - the NSW Schools championships in Sydney's Hills District

* Sep 29-Oct 7 - the Australian championships in South Australia

Add in the State League, MetrO League and all our club events and we've got the year well and truly covered.

If you're looking to receive coaching - or to become an accredited coach - we'll have courses later in the year.

Don't forget to renew your membership, or join one of our friendly clubs.

After a brief lull over the festive season, our clubs this week resume their regular schedule.

The second half of the Central Coast  Summer Series starts on Sunday morning at Terrigal West, while that same morning (note the change of time) the Sydney Sprint series starts up at Kuring-gai Wildflower Gardens in St Ives.

Central Coast offer the standard 30-control summer series format.

The Sydney Sprints are conducted on Sunday afternoons (except for this weekend!) and consist of a single line course of about 3km. Beginners - don't be put off by the term 'Sprints'; this merely reflects the fact it's the shortest format of orienteering (think T20 cricket).

Interstate orienteers took out seven of the nine overall hard categories as the Xmas 5-Days carnival wrapped up at Belanglo State Forest on Sunday.

Garingal's Warwick Selby set lovely courses (his first outing as a bush planner) on Uringa's The Piggery map, and the GO team were all packed up by 12.30pm, allowing everyone an afternoon nap before the New Year's Eve fireworks.

A cooler day and some soft pine needles underfoot made for easy running... until the rocky pagodas and fallen tree paddocks required more careful negotiation of the terrain.

A huge thanks to all the clubs, setters, controllers, organisers, SI gurus, participants and hangers-on. All the best for 2018... there are whispers next year's X5D may be back in Sydney for urban up-and-down a la 2014. 

Overall point scores can be viewed here. Our 2017 champions were:

Young Queensland star Caroline Pigerre has made it two-from-two at the Xmas 5-Days carnival in the Southern Highlands.

Caroline won Thursday's first bush event at Canyonleigh by almost five minutes from ACT's Shannon Jones, after taking out the opening sprint by 78 seconds.

The Arthursleigh map was the venue for our NSW Long Champs in May when Uringa dusted off a map unused for at least a decade. This time it was Jim Mackay setting, and interstate women claimed the first four divisions.

Bennelong Northside's Richard Morris also made it a double, in Men's C, sparing his Sydney Summer Series rivals another flogging in the process.

Wednesday's carnival opener was a sprint at Chevalier College in Burradoo (pictured). The campus is not overly tricky but has enough complexity to trap the unwary.

SHOO's Peter Meyer set courses that perplexed and stumped, in a smallish area that does not appear to hold too many demons - yet the list of mispunches on the Men's A course was a veritable Who's Who of Australian orienteering.

Garingal's Duncan Currie led a junior sweep of Men's B while juniors won three of the top five women's classes.

There is Enter on Day at each of the three remaining events but you must register by 8.30am to claim a spot.