Report from Joel Mackay
Short version
Went to the Australian Rogaining Championships in the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges with a chap I had recently met called Phil Whitten. Improbably, we won! [Go to photos]
Long version
1. Pre-event
I had decided not to go. A look at the QANTAS web site showed that it was going to cost a thousand bucks to fly to Alice Springs in order to do the Australian Rogaining Championships at the end of July. Much as I enjoy rogaining, that was just a little bit steep. Then, I had an email out of the blue from a chap by the name of Phil Whitten, asking me if I was interested in partnering him for the event. I had met Phil once at the 2007 ACT Champs for about 5 minutes, so we were very close. I eyeballed the QANTAS site again, but nothing had changed, so I told Phil “Thanks, but I will give it a miss”.
A few weeks a friend pointed out that this was the perfect use of frequent flyer points – to pay for a flight that you wouldn’t otherwise take. Seemed very sensible, so I got back in touch with Phil (after an exhaustive background check – 2nd in the recent Paddy Pallin rogaine, good 2007 Six-Foot Track) and told him that I was on for it. For Phil, there was first the matter of his wedding to negotiate, with a convenient honeymoon walking the Larapinta Trail just before the event – two birds (so to speak), one stone etc.
The main concern I had when perusing the event web site was the warning about the spiky spinifex grass – something along the lines that it would penetrate one-inch thick steel plate, so “ensure that all footwear has no open weave panels”. Hmm - there are plenty of walking shoes out there that don’t have any meshy bits, but not a lot of runners. After agonizing long and hard, I just ended up taking my Montrail trail runners, which only had a little bit of mesh above the toes – “She’ll be right” was the thought.
2. At the site
The event HQ was at Ross River Resort, 100 km east of Alice. I met up with Phil and his glowing bride Belinda Bright (who was also doing the event, with Gill Fowler and a friend they met the week before on the Larapinta trail!) and spent the evening chatting and shoveling down pasta. Belinda’s sole instruction to me was to make Phil suffer – I didn’t want to enquire any further about the nature of their marriage or honeymoon, but promised to do what I could.
Next morning was clear and still and the weather looked pretty good. Turned out to be mid to high 20’s in the day and perfect once the sun went down – 8-9 degrees or so. At 9 am we all queued up for our maps and then settled down for a couple of hours of route planning and agonizing. Which checkpoints to get and in what order?
Because the terrain was so different to the NSW/ACT maps, we had no idea how quickly we would move over the ground and how tricky the navigation would be. It looked fast, but the features on the map looked like they might make navigation a challenge – lots of funny rocky outcrops (the map looked like it had acne in places).
We optimistically designed a course that would take in almost all of the controls, just leaving out a few paltry low scoring ones, and then set about the usual endless packing and repacking of my bag. At the start, we eyed up the lean and fit looking competition – people with an assortment of “Junior World Orienteering Championships”, XPD and other event gear. The temperature had also crept up during the morning, so that just before the midday start, everyone was taking what scraps of shelter they could from the trees dotted around the start corral.
3. Race time!
The hooter went, and we were off! Few people headed off the same way as us, which always makes you a bit nervous, but we soon got going and picked up a couple of checkpoints. By this time, a lean and mean looking pair of blokes had left us for dead, which in retrospect was great, because it removed any thoughts from our minds that we might be in contention for anything and allowed us to just concentrate on navigating.
After about 40 minutes, Phil fell headlong into a spinifex bush. Now, I had never really known much about this family of grasses (or any family for that matter) but it was brutal! Phil got up with a thousand tiny puncture wounds (I briefly considered whether this would adequately meet Belinda’s request – even though I hadn’t actually pushed him myself), and we learned pretty quickly to be a bit careful around the stuff.
The small wedge of open mesh on my trail runners was learning all about spinifex too. There is a scene in Black Adder, where an archbishop is trying to convince a dying landowner to give all his money to the Church – there is some comment about hell and being pricked for eternity by a thousand tiny forks. That was the spinifex – every time I went anywhere near a spinifex bush (i.e., often), I was poked multiple times on the toes and I had to stop every hour or so to remove a small shard of the stuff.
As the afternoon wore on we found that we were going along at a pretty good rate, and hitting the checkpoints OK. Phil was really setting the pace – navigating well and running comfortably at a slightly quicker pace than I was planning for (so much for making him suffer). One thing that was surprising was seeing flocks of budgies flying around – that was the last thing I was expecting out there, but apparently that is one of their homes – amazing sights!
We made our way as planned up the eastern edge of the course and by the time we got up into the north, it was getting dark. I have been running on an oldish Black Diamond torch, which I had thought was OK until Phil fired up his new Princeton Tec Apex! The difference was like day and night! Of course, I couldn’t be out-gadgeted, so I hauled out my secret weapon – the Jet Lites (www.jetlites.com) 12-W halogen bike light, which I use as a “spotter” (shades of Paul Hogan: “That’s not a light - *this* is a light!”). You can see a *very* long way with this light but the downside is that the weight of the battery (~700 g), so real hotshots scoff at it (after all, why do you need to see more than 50 m away – your navigation should be that good anyway!).
Well, we continued on our merry way back to the hash house, collaring on the way two checkpoints that people had been warning us were in the wrong place. They were indeed misplaced, but they were on nearby features that were very similar (a parallel spur and a nearby similar gully), so we were able to locate them OK.
Got back to the hash house at ~1 am with Phil still leading the way, and had a good feed – proper food definitely hits the spot at that point in a 24-h event. We got going again, and headed N. Our original plan had been to head through the big gap to pick up 83 and 77 on the way to the northwest, but looking at the map made us realize that (a) we weren’t going to get everything and (b) it was going to be *much* faster to head along the road via 41 and 64 to get to the NW. So, we took the latter option.
Here, the original plan had been to pick up all of the NW points, but we considered the time (5 am at 30) and decided to cut out 37 and 71 and arrived at W1 at about 9:30 am. Phil suggested the return route 25-40-62-59-54-HH. I was keen to grab 49 as well, but he wisely dissuaded me. We wound up the pace for the last 2 km gallop back to the hash house, and Phil just dropped fractionally behind (at least I would be able to report to Belinda that Phil was a bit uncomfortable for the last 3 minutes) and we trundled into the finish area together with a few minutes to spare.
4. The aftermath
We were pretty happy with our event overall – nailed all the controls we went for and were hopeful of a top 10 finish or so. We wandered off to get changed and shovel down some of the excellent food provided by the organizers. At the prizegiving, the organizers read out everyone’s results in reverse order, and presented the trophies as they went. There were 130 teams, and I was soon rudely asleep in my chair (fortunately at the back).
After some time, I heard voices saying “Joel – wake up – wake up – you’ve won!” I realized of course that I must still have been asleep, but they seemed to persist, so I opened my eyes to see Phil standing up with the announcers and blearily made my way over there. Unbelievably, we HAD won overall, by the narrowest of margins. Our 2690 points was just enough to hold off Dave Baldwin and Julie Quinn (who had suffered a gear malfunction with Julie’s headtorch not working – forcing them to run a dozen km or so back to the hash house to get a replacement!) on 2670. Neither of us could believe that wehad won – I can honestly say that the possibility of us winning hadn’t crossed my mind during the event for even a moment, which made it all the more astonishing.
The trophies that we collected were spectacular –small sections of sleepers from the old Ghan railway that were mounted on small rocks (well, a few kg in weight) from near selected checkpoints. The assemblies had then been clear-lacquered. We got one each, as well as the perpetual trophy with the famous ‘golden boot’ – it is quite an honour to have our names engraved on this trophy alongside some legendary past winners.
Overall, the event was very well organized and ran smoothly – we had a great location, spectacular views, great food, and a very friendly atmosphere. There were plenty of decisions to be made in route planning, which made it a great challenge, and plenty of options for changing your mind out on the course. See you at the next event!
Checkpoints visited
52-35-48-68-W5-92-69-56-36-73-111-45-W6-78-53-90-82-76-101 (6 pm) -66-61-120-55-W4-67-75-58-63 (12 pm)-46-HH-51-65-W3-41-64-74-W2-30-94 (6 am)-110-31-91-79-80-33-W1-25-40-62-59-54-HH
[Click the thumbnail for a larger version and a caption.]
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