Latest ONSW News
Newcastle members Karen Blatchford and Justin Stafford have taken out Central Coast's summer series after the tenth and final event at Bateau Bay on Sunday.
With their best six scores counting, Karen (595) held off Asya Khristosova (576), while Justin (593) only just pipped CC member Brenton Race (590) for the men's prize. Series winners on handicap were Elizabeth Bunn (NC) and Lachlan Harris (CC).
All the series results can be found here. Thank you to everyone who set, organised and supported the series.
And a reminder that entries close soon for the annual O'Shea 2-Days event on February 20-21.
It's the only pairs event on the ONSW calendar, with three races over 18 hours - Saturday afternoon, Saturday night and Sunday morning. This year we are in the Kincumber / East Gosford (new map) / Davistown area.
Enter via Eventor by February 18. We look forward to again seeing some of the zany outfits worn by participants on this always friendly weekend.
Entries are open for our 2016 Middle and Long Distance championships, to be held on the revered Snow Hills maps near Braidwood on April 2-3.
Snow Hills is one of the best spur gully areas in Australia. With few tracks and a lot of termite mounds, the Hard courses will be challenging. Runnability is often flat-out fast, but there are areas of low visibility she-oak forest and some tea tree regrowth on old farmland.
Entry details and a copy of the existing map will be available in Eventor soon. See the flyer for preliminary info.
The champs are on the weekend after Easter, and coincide with the Orienteering Australia High Performance Squad camp in the ACT.
Big Foot's last attempt at a State League weekend in Snow Hills, in October 2012, was unfortunately washed out - and snowed on ! Here's hoping for nice weather for this iteration.
The NSW Sprint championships will be held on Saturday August 27 at Bankstown, in conjunction with the NSW Schools Sprint championships.
Bush, river, park and a bit of street - a smorgasbord of terrain and scenery ensured our 25th anniversary Sydney Summer Series at Boronia Park was one to remember.
A proud Ross Barr, the series instigator in 1991-92 (the SSS has been through seven prime ministers), watched on all smiles as the retro 6pm mass start line course crowned the muggy evening.
Michele Dawson (pictured below) took out the women's line course in 39m55s. The lead changed between Barbara Hill, Lisa Grant, Paula Shingler and Michele before the JWOC rep triumphed by 16 seconds over Lisa, with Paula two seconds back and Barbara a further 12 seconds adrift. Classic match racing.
Michele's younger brother Aidan stormed out of the blocks in the men's race (see top pic) but overshot #1 and couldn't make up the time, eventually finishing fourth behind WHO's James Macquillan - enjoying his best season and winning in 35m11s, 35 seconds ahead of Richard Morris.
There was plenty of jockeying for minor places, too, with Andy Simpson pipping Big Foot clubmate Michael Burton by one second for the runner-up spot in the Veteran Men's class. Andy took the track out of the last control and went by the oval while Michael went north and below the contours, out of sight as both men powered to the finish.
All up 41 people set off at the mass start, while an even 200 enjoyed the traditional score course.
Our French visitor Aurelien Penneman topped that with 570, taking the bragging rights over Open Men's champ Steve Ryan and Masters maestro Glenn Horrocks. Rogaining star Gill Fowler was the best female in action, collecting 490 and sixth place overall.
Dan Redfern set a generous score course that rewarded everyone, and really made the fitter folk pant for their bonus points. Heck, even your correspondent racked up 390 walking! Lollies everywhere, but still a very good cardio workout given the up-down of the bush tracks.
And it was great to see 22 of the original 30 people from this event 25 years ago taking part, proving once again that orienteering is a sport for life.
A huge thank you to Dan and the Garingal helpers for another smoothly run event in a lovely area. The maps and a few photos are on our Facebook page.
This is a reminder that Uringa's Margaret Jones is conducting a family-friendly forest navigation course this weekend in the Southern Highlands.
It is aimed at teaching moderate level navigation skills, aiding in the transition from easy courses. It follows on from Maggie's previous Learn to Navigate course in Sydney.
Importantly, it will very useful for those who can competently run a Summer Series (or urban street) course and want to try bush orienteering, and those who have tried bush orienteering but would like to improve their competence. For the youngest participants (5-12yrs) there will be a separate stream of training which will focus on fun in the forest.
Times: Sat Jan 30: afternoon session 1400, evening session from 1800. Sun Jan 31: Start 1000, expected finish 1500.
Venue: The Hut, Belanglo Forest, Belanglo Road, just off the Hume Highway.
Cost: Overnight accommodation is in the Hut at $12 per person (limited availability) or bring a tent at $6 per tent. Coaching fees are per person/per day of $10 with a discounted child rate of $5 per child/per day. These nominal fees cover forest access charges and a small contribution to coaching fees and materials. Bring your own food. Tea, coffee, milk and water provided. Book here.
