An account from 3rd place finishers.

Another Lesson Learned…

It became more of a trudge than a Gallop…
After getting the maps and doing the usual quick scan of the contours, vegetation and spread of points we settled in and took quite a while working out a suitable route. Well spread controls and balanced points suggested an event worthy of championship status. We decided we needed to be conservative early on especially with heat and so opted for the NW corner where there were fewer contours and water not too far away. So, 10, 31, 32, 27, 33, 41, 51, 50, 40 and refill at 28 and we seemed to be moving ok. We disturbed some Red-tailed Black Cockatoos which we don’t see that much closer to the coast but no snakes strangely enough. Headed across to 30 which seemed a long hot slog on uneven ground then across the river, attempting to walk on water, and up to 29. We were a little off heading to 29 and probably should have read this as a warning that we needed to concentrate more as after 39 we spent too long mucking around with 48. We eventually realised we were closer to 49 but not being sure, we headed back to the river to pick up 13 which we were not going to worry about. After 13 (in the thistles!!) it became much easier to navigate to 49 then 48, along the creek to 59 and then 58. We were a little annoyed all but a little of the water had been consumed at the water drop but decided that was just part of the problem called “Rogaining” that we had to solve. We left a bit of water for a team trailing us and headed to 57 with head torches now on, and hoping that on the return the water fairies had been. Thankfully they arrived as we did and after filling up we headed out at 7pm to the NE loop which had us a little concerned. We knew it would be a telling section so we kept saying to ourselves and each other to take it slow and keep concentrating. We were very pleased to get around the top section (water, 62, 61, 65, 64, 70, 63, water) in 4 hrs. We were fortunate to find the indistinct track from 63 as it was a little in from the main track but it was like a highway after the scrub of the top section.

By this stage we had covered about 35km and were disappointed to find no water at the drop and so headed down to 56 and from here felt we had sufficient water to get us back to the HH for a feed at about 2.30am. Decided to tackle 46 on the way back and managed to navigate straight to it from the dam, as the track seemed to end near there. Then up to 47 and along the creek to 38 and then 14 before a changed of shirt and socks and refill of water and food. Eating a sausage sandwich as we went we headed to 11 before spending a frustrating amount of time looking for 20. We ended up lying down for 15mins and once we got moving again, found we put away the head lamps. We felt at this stage with the mistakes we had made, that unless we got all the controls we would not be in with a chance of high placing. Picked up 20 easily in the light then down to 21, 22 and 45. Had planned to and should have gotten 44 on the way to 45 (forgot??) and this would have saved us heartache later. Then over to 55, water, 60, around creek to 54 and then 53 @ 8am.

Here it all went pear-shaped! We thought that with 4 hrs to go we could still get all the controls so headed to 44. Maybe we weren’t concentrating or just tired but it seems we ended up closer to 22 and looked in the shallow gullies just to the south 22 and obviously couldn’t find 44 so headed back down westerly creek to the river not realising we were heading more NW than the SW we needed. This put us on the NE section of river just north of 44. We hadn’t checked the angle of the river (a product of tiredness and pressure) and so proceeded to check down stream a little for the watercourse to 43. Things didn’t really make sense although we tried to make the map fit the surroundings (once again a product of tiredness). About an hour later we actually realised what part of the river we were on and that we were nearly 2km upstream from 43. By this stage we lost a bit of motivation and thought we’d head back early knowing we didn’t want to leave too late to head back home. But how easy would it have been to go 53, 43, 52, 42, 36 HH for 1640 pts. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

We had no idea that 1620 would win it. (Congratulations to David and Julie). But it certainly taught us that sticking it out to the end is absolutely necessary as you just don’t know how other teams are travelling. We’ve been kicking ourselves ever since. I have should have paid more attention to my email sign off – ‘The race is not always to the swift but to those who keep on running’. I hope we learn this lesson!

Thankyou to Ian Dempsey, Bert van Netten and team for another memorable experience.

Paul Stein
Matt Cooper