47th Paddy Pallin 6 hour

Results (updated 29 July 2010)

You can view the routes taken by others and draw your own route at:
http://garingal.com.au/cgi-bin/gadget3/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=119&kieli=

Glenn Horrocks, Joel Mackay & Andrew Black, winners of the open & men's section

Course Setters Report - by Andrew Haigh

I was asked to set the 2010 Paddy Pallin at the 2008 Socialgaine. In the middle of 2009 we started to get serious about finding a good spot and found a nice cleared area North of St Albans. The first setback was when about half the course was declared Wilderness Area (no organised events allowed). This didn’t prove to be a show stopper, but then just before Christmas 2009, and after a couple of days out on the proposed course, the Hash House venue fell through.

The hardest part of setting a Paddy Pallin course is finding a suitable place for the Hash House. The area needs to be large enough for 250 cars and over 600 people.

It wasn’t until February whilst driving around Central Coast National Parks that we came across Kariong Scout Camp. We quickly formed a good relationship with the friendly caretakers Andrew and Rebecca Harris. Whilst the surrounding bushland was thicker than we had hoped it was very attractive and the decision was quickly made to use the location.

We spent 8 days out on the course. After each trip I dropped more and more of the out-lying planned controls as I realised my original course was way too big thanks to the thick vegetation. All that remained was sliced in half by a large out of bounds area thanks to the rifle range. Laurie Pascoe, from the National Parks, reviewed the map and added a few more out of bounds areas to protect delicate aboriginal and flora locations, forcing the deletion of more controls and slight adjustment of several others. Laurie set/vetted with us for one day on the North East of the course to check out the potential routes by competitors. The final course looked rather small and I suspect some teams thought that a course clearance was a possibility

During the setting, vetting and hanging process it did not rain once. I was worried that our luck was about to run out. I was very pleased that the 600 competitors got to see this area at its best, in bright sunshine.

On the day, Greig Scott and I enjoyed a relaxing wander around the controls west of the HH, taking a few photos, it was a pleasure to see people enjoying the area. Just as we were returning to the HH at 1 pm my telephone rang. It was a team reporting that a team member was injured, a badly strained ankle. They were on the track near control 37.

We reported the incident to the St Johns Ambulance staff, Kevin & Leanne White, and they advised that we call the ambulance service. Just as this incident was developing a second team telephoned to say they had an injured competitor as well. A two wheel drive ambulance duly arrived. The escalation process appeared to be agonisingly slow, I had several phonecalls from the injured team the patient had deteriorated and was in a great deal of pain (X rays later revealed two broken bones). Eventually a 4WD Ambulance came and we managed to gain access through the Rifle Range. With the patient nearly 3km from the 4WD track a helicopter rescue was the only answer. Greig Scott and the three ambulance officers walked the 3 kilometres to the injured person to coordinate the helicopter. I continued along the 4WD track to the track junction west of control 51. I had told the other team to try to get to this spot some 90 minutes earlier. Much to my relief they had made it as planned. By the time we returned to the HH the event was over.

The Waitara Scouts again provided the catering for this event. They have set a very high standard in recent years. Keith Fone efficiently managed a large team of volunteers to again produce great meals both on Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday morning breakfast that he provided for the organising team was a welcome treat during a very busy admin period.

Andrew and Rebecca Harris spent a lot of time working out how to fit the 250 cars into the cleared areas available. They also provided a team of 10 scouts and scout leaders on Sunday morning to direct people and shoehorn the cars in. This was a great relief and it meant our admin team was doubled, as none of us were needed for car parking duty.

Thank to Paddy Pallin for continuing to support this event and providing selection of spot prizes which has become something of a tradition at these events.

For those interested in such things the map was produced in Paint Shop Pro (PSP) from a scan of standard topo maps. All the tracks where mapped using a Garmin Forerunner 310xt Gps. The tracks where loaded into Oziexplorer and then pasted onto a ‘track’ layer in PSP. The Controls and out of bounds areas where placed on a third layer for easy manipulation.

Email is certainly the primary communication method these days, I received 310 emails relating to this event and sent 220.

Thanks to all those who tracked me down on the day to thank me for my efforts and of course I would like to thank all those who helped me make it possible.

The Team

Course Setting + a bit of organising

Andrew Haigh

Vetting and Flag Hanging

Nicole Haigh
Gareth Denyer
Jonathan Worswick
David Stone
Greig and Di Scott
John and Mardi Barnes

Admin Team

Lindsay Young
Graeme and Vicki Cooper
Nicole Haigh
Alexa McAuley
John and Mardi Barnes
Greig and Di Scott
Bob Gilbert
Bob Kenderes
Bianca
Peter Cox
Jonathan Worswick

For general information about this event, contact ...

Andrew Haigh
email: anhaigh@bigpond.com
phone: 02 4959 8840

For entry or results related matters contact ...

Lindsay Young
phone: 02 9525 6403
email: admin@nswrogaining.org

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