About the Event
I have rogained at Sugarloaf at least twice before and knew what to expect. You know when a Lake Macquarie rogaine includes Sugarloaf, you will be doing some climbing. The top of Sugarloaf is 412m and the surrounding country is more like 100m. The other things I have come to expect from a Sugarloaf rogaine are gorgeous views and lovely open country that is perfect for rogaining.
Bert
The driving force behind the Lake Macquarie rogaines is Bert van Netten. Bert is a fabulous contributor to our sport and a fine rogainer. To put it in context, Bert was on the organising committee when our sport first started in 1984 and the average rogainer was still in nappies. Bert is quite a legend in NSW Rogaining. I still remember the first time I beat Bert in a rogaine. It was the 2003 Propran NP rogaine. To be fair to Bert, he had his wife, Dianne (also a fine rogainer) and kids with him and the kids must have been pretty young at that stage. I still remember it because Bert was not easily beaten.
My Team
I teamed up with David Richards for yesterday’s event. Dave and I would normally do the 12 hour but neither of us was particularly match fit. I suffered through winter with a string of viruses and Dave has been working on a home renovation project that has kept him from the bush. Also, the recent rainy weather hasn’t helped anyone’s training program. To be honest, David and I were both looking forward to the event with a bit of trepidation and we were going to make sure our route was as flat as possible and included only one climb of Sugarloaf.
Weather
It was forecast to rain during yesterday’s event, and it did. It looked, for a while, that the clouds were going to pass overhead. But, no such luck. I optimistically put on sunburn cream before the event, but I regretted it halfway through when the rain made it run into my eyes. Between having wet, foggy glasses and sunburn cream leeching into my eyes, I couldn’t see much for a while, but at that stage we were on our way to control 80 at the top of Sugarloaf and you didn’t need 20/20 vision to find the top of the mountain. Once we had bagged the summit control we headed down to 60 and at that point every path was a rivulet. I do not mind rain in a rogaine. I would much prefer that to heat, but there are limits and for about 10 minutes there yesterday it was absolutely bucketing down and everything became slow, difficult and slippery. We were warned before the event that the leeches had come out to enjoy the rain. Fortunately, I had no leeches during yesterdays’ event and Dave only found one, in his sock, once he got home.
Course
Bert et al, had set a really good course that kept us all away from any impenetrable bush. The only time we saw any thick stuff was near control 40. As we approached control 40 the foliage started to get tangled, and David and I contemplated skipping the control. But, we needn’t have worried. It was a thin band of thick stuff and we quickly found the control and moved on. We were near 40 when we encountered an almost novice team who looked topographically confused, and I did not blame them. They were standing on a 10ft wide firetrail that wasn’t marked on the map. My expert advice to them was to ignore the roads and trails and trust your compass. Roads may come and go, but ridges, watercourses and spurs don’t move. Unmarked fire trails are a frequent challenge on Lake Macquarie rogaines and you have to ignore them as best you can. Yesterday, Dave and I found a couple of helpful unmarked trails. My favourite took us from control 40 to control 30 in very quick time. Dave and I had a pretty good day at the office yesterday, with time wasted at only two controls. One of these was control 30. We went to the bottom of the gully but couldn’t find the watercourse. We wandered around for about a minute wondering how a watercourse could hide in all that rain. After striking out north, we found the obvious watercourse. Most unusually the watercourse was not quite at the bottom of the gully. I didn’t have my theodolite with me, but I will swear that the watercourse was at least 1m above the lowest point of the gully. Our other small mistake was at 36 when we walked past the obvious gully unsure we had the right one, but within a minute or two realised that it had been the right gully and backtracked to pick up the control. The rest of our course was mistake free.
Routes
A course like Sugarloaf is, of course, dominated by the mountain but there was quite a bit of route choice available. David and I used the long novice course as the basis for our route and extended it by taking in the summit controls south to 70. We had left ourselves options for extending our route by grabbing 33, 35 and 45 or by including 40, 30, 50 and 54 on the way home. On the way off the escarpment we decided to bypass 33, 35 and 45 in favour of the higher pointing loop of 40, 30, 50 and 54. Unfortunately, we were much quicker than expected and ended up at 81 with just under an hour in hand and no unclaimed controls within almost 2km. We ended up finishing with 30mins to spare and regretting not also including 33, 35 and 45 in our route.
Having finished, we spoke to some other teams who had ventured west of the escarpment and included the run of 73, 75, 101, 92, 58 and 56 in their course. To be honest I hadn’t even considered this as an option when we were route planning and I was now kicking myself as this seemed a very obvious high pointing series of controls. Once the splits are available it will be interesting to see how much this hurt us. If I had my time over, I would have come back via 107, 73, 75 101 and 92. In any case, it is the search for unattainable perfection that keeps me coming back to rogaines.
What a Fun Event
There are about 6 million people living within easy reach of yesterday’s rogaine, but only 300 of them turned up for yesterday. I feel very sorry for people who haven’t heard of rogaining and therefore have no opportunity to compete. I did my first rogaine when I was 31 simply because I hadn’t heard of it until I attended a bbq with mates who told me of its existence. If you have heard of rogaining and didn’t turn up yesterday you should kick yourself. It was a great event with a wide variety of different types of rogaining country, great views and interesting weather conditions. It was a classic rogaine with both mind and body getting a full workout.
Thank you to Bert, Anita, the Montgomerys and others who turn up again and again to make the annual Lake Macquarie rogaines happen. Yesterday was really enjoyable and I deeply appreciate all the work you did to make it happen.