Latest ONSW News
Organisers promise the sparkle of moonlight upon ocean, reprising many a romantic scene from The Love Boat, when the last of our 2016 'lunartic' outings takes place at Harbord on Wednesday night.
Bennelong Northside setters David and Clyde McGhee have borrowed Garingal's Fleshwater map for the finale to Moonlight Madness for this year. Highlights are the boardwalk to South Curl Curl, the dunes to North Curly, Freshwater Beach, the Duke surfing statue, and the big hill in the middle of the map.
With the days lengthening, the start window for this event will be 5.45-7.30pm. Assembly is at Jacka Park. You'll need a headlamp or torch. It's a great warm-up for the summer series that are just around the corner.
Slow times and thick vegetation dominated our State League finale for 2016 in the Southern Highlands.
SHOO hosted us on an updated Boxvale Tramway map at chilly Mittagong on Saturday for a Middle Distance event that went out through some vague forest and soon became very intricate among the cliffs above Nattai Creek. Uringan Ian McKenzie’s win in M35A was worthy of special mention as he usually walks around the SSS.
Most winning times were around 50-60 minutes and set the tone for Sunday's Long Distance event at Belanglo State Forest, where quite a few people were 90+ minutes on course.
IKO used the northwestern sector of the forest and competitors soon found out that the area has greened up. "The white is light green, the light green darker and the dark green…," commented one veteran. It was a real physical challenge in places and a mental challenge in others, as we expect from a Long event.
Andy Simpson (Big Foot) cleaned up a quality field in M50A by 17 minutes, while ACT O royalty Jo Allison and Dave Shepherd took out the 21A classes. Dan Redfern (Garingal) had the run of his life in M55A to finish second to David Poland by two minutes.
It was touching, too, to note the number of orienteers who visited the memorial for those who lost their lives to Ivan Milat.
Thanks to both clubs for a terrific warm-up for the Australian championships in a fortnight. The weekend's courses are on Routegadget and results on Eventor. Please fill out the very brief Course Setter of the Year surveys for each day.
Final OY scores will be posted very soon to determine our annual badge winners.
Thank you to all clubs, participants, organisers, setters, controllers and the junior squad caterers for the 2016 season.
Orienteering NSW is calling for applications for the role of Junior Squad Catering Co-ordinators for 2017.
The job can be shared by several people and involves catering at State League weekends (usually soup, wraps, rolls, cakes, hot and cold drinks etc).
Funds raised from these sales help subsidise the substantial cost to families of attending squad camps and the annual national schools championships.
ONSW thanks Nicky Nygh, Jo Parr and their team for an outstanding job these past three years - carrying on the good work of Maggie Jones and Barbara Dawson prior to that.
Please email the office if you are interested in taking on wholly or partially this important role.
Our 2016 MetrO League season wound up with some tight, thrilling finals on a new Garingal map at Galston on Sydney's northern fringe.
A total of just 6 points decided the top four grades, with the all-female WHO Hahs' 30-22 win over Bennelong Northside in Division 5 the only 'comprehensive' victory.
Carol Jacobson's new map was a mixture of campus sprint (a novel 1:4000 inset at the start), followed by some up-and-down in Sydney sandstone and all sorts of vegetation.
SHOO-IKO (Divn 2) and Bennelong Northside (Divn 3) were crowned champions despite being one runner short. SHOO-IKO edged the Garingal Dragons 28-26, while Bennelong drew with SHOO-IKO 27-27 but prevailed due to their higher ladder position after the round robin series.
Garingal Goannas won Division 1, which was being decided on a first-past-the-post basis, thanks to a 29-26 upset of Big Foot. Both teams were hampered by the unavailability of key runners. It was only when start official Peter Annetts (pictured in orange vest) finished his run that the result could be calculated.
Garingal Legless got home 25-24 against Bennelong in a nervous Division 4 encounter to record a perfect 7-0 season. Each team had a runner mp and the vanquished were again ruing being one runner short.
In the race for the individual medals, the winners are Andrew Hill (WHO, Divn 1), Doug Jay (SHOO, Divn 2), Ross Barker (IKO, Divn 3), Ian Jessup (GO, Divn 4) and Riley Grainger (GO, Divn 5). The two lowest divisions were decided after the favourites - two juniors with plenty of promise - suffered the cruel fate of a mispunch.
The MetrO League web page has been updated with all the results.
Thanks to all the clubs, club captains, runners, setters, organisers for another great year. We look forward to the 2017 competition, when several new ML maps are tipped to be used.
