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Description

The “Berowra Bewilderness (Rivers, Rocks and Ridges)” 4/8hr Socialgaine is only a stone’s throw away!

Course Layout

A huge amount of work has been made in creating a course that will appeal to everyone from young families, keen bushwalkers, ultramarathon champions to couples on their first date*. Whilst we have tried to make some easy routes for novices, we have gone out of our way to provide no obvious route to “bewilder” the teams looking to get the lot. Aside from those teams with strollers, all teams will have the option to spend most of the time in the bush, enjoying the beautiful Berowra Valley and Ku-ring-gai Chase National Parks.

The Event is subtitled “Rivers, Rocks and Ridges,” because those three things sum up the course area perfectly. At the risk of giving too much away, here is a summary of each:

Rivers

The course area will be essentially bounded Cowan and Berowra Creeks to the East and West, respectively. The may be named “creeks,” but at this point they are both major water bodies at several hundred metres across as part of the Hawkesbury Catchment. “Berowra” is believed an Aboriginal term for “place of many shells,” and both creeks contain many of these washed up on the rocks, as well as mangrove swamps, side creeks with impressive waterfalls and lots of boats including a boat ruin or two. The holiday village of Berowra Waters, located at the waters edge contains many restaurants, boat docks and picnic grounds will also be part of the course.

The course will include plenty of views of these creeks, both from lookout points and close-up views along tracks parallel to them, such as the iconic Great North Walk, a large section of which will utilized in the course.

Rocks

The Berowra region is full of fascinating sandstone formations, including long clifflines opening up brilliant viewing platforms, vast expanses of bare rock and even a couple of caves. Many of the Checkpoint locations have been placed specifically to appreciate these structures in all their natural beauty. The rock in the area has its own classification of “Hawkesbury Sandstone.”

Ridges

The residential area of Berowra and Berowra Heights is a large plateau (part of the Hornsby plateau) of an altitude around 200m with steep sides sloping into Berowra Valley at sea level. This residential area is full of interesting playgrounds, cafes and local landmarks, allowing the less crazy teams to plan a route that keeps to the top part of the course and minimize climbing whilst still being able to appreciate the view below. Of course, the more competitive teams will not have the same luck and can expect to do several traverses of the hillside to get to the dearer checkpoints, but these will most certainly be rewarded with outstanding luscious scenery of waterfalls and rainforest.

*Disclaimer: The NSW Rogaining Association takes no responsibility for break-ups that occur because of this event.

Hash House

The Hash House will be conveniently located at Berowra Community Centre, the Gully Rd Berowra, 200m from Berowra Station and just off the Pacific Highway and near the turnoff to the M1 Motorway. Whilst there will be a large amount of local parking, we encourage competitors to catch the train or carpool where possible to minimise disruption to residents, which will also be a great way to meet like-minded people. The Waitara Scouts will once again be hosting a great meal at the end of the event.

Duration

We are trialling our first 4/8hr Socialgaine (traditionally 6hrs in length), to give a shorter option for novice teams to do a shorter route, but allowing a bit of extra time for the more ambitious teams to get to the villages of stretching to the villages of Mt Kuring-gai in the south or Cowan in the north, or both! There will be a mass start at 9:25am and finish at 13:25 and 17:25 finish respectively. We would love feedback on people’s experiences in the format and whether this something that should be done again, or if there is another duration that could work well for a Socialgaine.

Prizes

As in our other events, winner’s mugs will be awarded to the teams who collect the highest score in their gender and age group in the 8hr event, but as this is a Socialgaine, in the 4hr event there will be a huge number of lucky draw prizes for almost everything but (aside from the overall men’s, women’s and mixed winners), including, but not limited to:

• Clever team names
• Remembering details of Checkpoint locations
• Random trivia questions
• Provocative Photography on course
• Highest scoring team with a stroller/wheelchair

Can you Help?

All the CPs by now have been marked with tape and I have received plenty of generous offers to vet, hang and collect the flags, but we are still quite light on volunteers on the day. If you would be able to be on hand at the Hash House in the case of an emergency that would be much appreciated. Some hands to help set up, pack up, and marshal could also be useful if you don’t want to miss out on participating.

Would you like to do the event but are busy on the day? If you consider yourself a fairly competitive rogainer we would love you to compete the 8hr event in rogaine conditions to give us an understanding of the routes people will plan and suggestions on how it could be tweaked.

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Need a partner for this event?  Try our  Partner Finding Service .

Need a lift or like to have someone share the travel costs?  Try our Carpooling Service.

For more information about this event please contact the

Enquiries: Tristan White
email:   publicity@nswrogaining.org

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