On the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, we assembled for three days of sprint events at locations around Launceston. About 30 southerners had been lured north by the prospect of 6 events and were joined by a similar number of northerners. We even had two mainlanders - Ian and Debbie Dodd from Victoria, who came to Tassie especially for the weekend in preference to the carnival at Wagga.
Chief organiser was Paul Pacque, assisted by Chris Brown and Nick Andrewartha. Paul had created four new maps for the weekend – Brooks High School, Launceston Grammar, Prospect Park and TAFE Alanvale Campus. The other two maps were Trevallyn Village Green and UTAS.
The first event was at Brooks High School. It is a fairly new campus and we ventured into the surrounding streets and parkland. The Trevallyn event on Saturday was on a map familiar to me, except we had to find the ubiquitous horse jumps through a series of butterfly loops - at night.
There were three events on Sunday. We warmed up in the morning with a sprint around the complex set of buildings at UTAS. In the afternoon we explored the various courtyards and surrounds of the beautiful Launceston Grammar campus. The forays into the surrounding bushland required some thought, especially for those who chose a route through a blackberry patch. Finally, torches were re-charged for another night event, this time at Prospect Park. We had 20 minutes to score as many points as possible on a golf course. Those who didn’t turn around after 10 minutes for the return journey were heavily penalised for their tardy return by a heartless computer.
At the final event at TAFE Alanvale, we weaved our way around a fairly complex set of buildings on courses that required route choice and decision making on most of the legs. Working late into Saturday night, Paul had allocated starting times according to our aggregate performances over the weekend. The first home on each of the courses was to be crowned the winner for the weekend, but the twist was that the slowest runners started first, so it was a handicap race. Theoretically, if the handicapper was on his game and no-one had been foxing in the preliminary events, everyone should have finished simultaneously.
The Stoner family featured in the winning lists. Mum Esta Berdahic won the Women’s Short, Niko won the Men’s Medium, Eddie came second in the Men’s Short and Dad Anthony was the fastest qualifier (and therefore last starter) in Men’s Medium, but couldn’t catch anyone but me. The Stoners are new to orienteering and had made the trip from Hobart - I think we’ll be hearing more about them in the future.
The closest race was Women’s Medium, where Liz Butler passed Jane Calder at the second-last control to edge her out – perhaps Jane should hone her tackling technique? On the Long courses, nobody could catch the first starters – David Cole and Donelda Niles.
Paul had emphasised that it was to be a fun weekend – and it was. It was brilliantly organised, most maps were new and the courses were challenging. Thanks Paul, Chris and Nick!
... photos courtesy Michelle Kerr and Chris Brown.
More of Michelle's photos for the weekend at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qnqaqal3mp529ol/AADBkUYw7B8_nnCGzlCcoabaa?dl=0
... article by Mike Calder. Many thanks Mike !