eNewsletter 223 - Sunday 21^st June, 2026

G'day fellow rogainers,

In this newsletter

• Paddy Pallin review
• Entries open 35^th Lake Mac rogaine & NSW Champs, 25-26^th July
• Book your island holiday early for the Ferrygaine on September 20^th
• New film: Michael Kozok walks 14,400km around Australia
• Our new Search & Rescue Plan swings into action
• Combined NSW & ACT 2026 Rogaining Calendars

Rewards & benefits from rogaining

The rewards and benefits from rogaining are many: increasing self-awareness, team building, self-reliance, navigational expertise, fitness, competition, recreation and appreciation of the natural environment. For some, the reward lies in determining how far the body can be pushed physically, of finding out about the mental strength of the team at 2am when it is raining, cold and you are "nearly lost". For others, satisfaction comes from self-set challenges. Most importantly, each rogaine takes its participants to new heights, and returns them as more self-reliant team players.

From "Rogaining -- Cross Country Navigation" by Neil & Rod Phillips, 1982.

Paddy Pallin review

Three minutes before the start...

The annual Paddy Pallin rogaine is the most popular bush event in our rogaining calendar and accordingly there was a healthy attendance of well over 500 participants in 225 teams, beating last year's event by 68. This was the 62nd Paddy Pallin rogaine.

The weather was fairly kind to us with a shower before the start, but otherwise it was a mostly dry day.

Congratulations to Salomé Hussein and Tim Porritt on successfully setting a suitably challenging bush course entirely within the deeply dissected bushland of the Glenbrook National Park just west of the Nepean River.

The large course challenged even our most experienced navigators. Reports are that at least one team of regulars each with decades of experience managed to come severely unstuck (i.e, they "got hopelessly lost"). Tracks were easily walkable but off track conditions varied from slow to very slow, especially into and within creeks, as some discovered the hard way and 8 teams were late back. Even the winning team only managed 65% of the possible points total.

Results

The overall winners were the mens team of Nikolay Nikolaev, Chris Turnbull, & Andrew Brown with 1810pts out of a possible score of 2800pts. They finished the 6 hour course 35 seconds late. The second and third placed teams were also mens teams. The top mixed team was Stewart Hancock and Lizzie Reid with 1370pts in 7th place overall, while the top womens team was Madeleine Gisz and Leanne Haupt with 1350pts in 10th place. Special mention should also go to the top family team of David and Oliver Lee with 1390pts in 5th place and the top under 23 team of Bill Klein and Tarana Stubenrauch with 1240pts in 13th place. Well done!

Winners by category:

Links to the full results are available from the event page.

Volunteers

There was an extraordinary volunteer turnout at this year's Paddy Pallin and it would not have run so smoothly without the help of the following:

^##Names in green are Paddy Pallin employees

A special thanks has to go to Jack, Salomé and Tim for their outstanding effort in coordinating the event and setting the course. A huge job.

Finally, this rogaine would not have been the same without considerable material and personnel support from our friends and sponsors at PADDY PALLIN. (Note all of the names in green listed in the volunteers table above.)

Approaching Control 100

For a lot more photos by our event photographers Bruce & Rosemary Sutton, and Michael Watts, see the event page.

35th Lake Mac Rogaine & NSW Champs
It's 6, 15-in-24, & 24-hrs in the Olney Cascades!

For your calendar: add the event date & add entries closing reminder

Entries are now open

Come and join us for a major milestone in NSW rogaining!

This year's 35^th Lake Macquarie rogaine will be our 250^th official rogaine in NSW. The event also incorporates the 2026 NSW Rogaining Championships and is being appropriately set by the legendary duo of Bert van Netten and Anita Bickle. Fittingly, this rogaine will feature a traditional 24-hour bush course, but it will also be supplemented by our ever-popular 6-hour and 15-in-24-hour options. Please note that you don't need to be a 'champion' to enter this rogaine. Most of the map will incorporate the Olney and Watagan State Forests, only a 1hr 45min drive up the freeway from Sydney.

The course will feature a relatively level novice and family friendly section that will dance through mature pines with an understory of wildflowers. There'll be multitudes of tracks around the start location. You will see wallabies, wombats, bandicoots, and especially goannas everywhere. The longer event options will incorporate several awesome plummeting waterfalls, water junctions, gullies of towering blue gums and eucalypt forest, and deeply seated pockets of untouched remnant rainforest. You'll be zigzaging areas of the Great North Walk.

There will be plenty of camping nearby on the Friday and Saturday nights (camping fees included in entry), and the easily accessible Hash House will have toilets and drinking water.

Bring the family and make a weekend of the adventure, particularly those regulars who enjoy our traditional Watagans/Lake Macquarie rogaines. Anita is planning some special event treats for our young at heart rogainers as follows: "Planning to have 2 guessing competitions for the 6hr and 15 and 24 hr - how many lollies in a jar? They have to write their guess on their flightplan for a chance to win. Also planning 3 controls that if all collected will give a bonus 250 points."

The entry fee covers dinner Saturday, breakfast and lunch on Sunday and, of course, the iconic all-night Lake Mac "Tea and Damper"!

Key info at a glance:

Enter Here

Course times:

Saturday 25^th

Sunday 26^th

NOTE: If in the 15-in-24hr, track your time. If returning for food or sleep be sure to pause your watch at the Hash House Admin and restart before going back out. Also note that if you enter the 15/24, you can't swap to the 24hr event midway. The Champs is a pure 24-hour competition and the prestigious trophies are only for those signed up for the specific 24hr event, even if your 15/24 score beats someone in the 24hr.

Timings of map availability, novice briefing, final briefing and prize givings will be confirmed closer to the event date. Final Instructions will be available on the website from Monday 20^th July.

Team finder service

If you are looking for a team to join, or would like to start a new team for this event, go to our new Team Finder page.

Key info for novices

Info for novices with advice on what gear to bring for a bush event and other information can be found on the website.

Event related queries can be directed to: admin@nswrogaining.org

3^1/2 & 6^1/2hr Ferrygaine, Sunday 20^th September

For your calendar: add the event date & add entries closing reminder

Entries opening soon

It’s time to start preparing for this year’s Socialgaine on Sunday 20^th September and getting in early for booking your camping spot or glamping tent on Cockatoo Island for the Saturday night. Or make a weekend of it and camp on Friday night as well.

This event will be truly unique. It will be the first ever 'ferrygaine', combining ferry travel with urban navigation, and being based at one of Australia’s most iconic locations.

There will be two rogaines to choose from:

• 6½ hour Socialgaine - starting at 10:00 and finishing at 16:30 (teams of 2-5)
• 3½ hour Minigaine - starting at 11:00 and finishing at 14:30 (teams of 2-5, solo entries also allowed)

Also, on the Saturday afternoon Big Foot Orienteers is running events around Cockatoo Island. Rogainers are encouraged to enter as a warmup for the rogaine and a sneak preview of the island’s layout, and then stay overnight. Enter on the eventor orienteering website.

Other reasons to arrive on Saturday (or Friday) and camp overnight include:

• Having a fun time with fellow rogainers, family and friends, on an island in the middle of Sydney Harbour, replicating the camaraderie of camping at bush rogaines.
• Cheap accommodation, especially for those who live outside Sydney – camping from just $65 per site.
• Exploring the unique Aboriginal, convict, and ship building history. Taking a guided tour (60 minutes, $20) on ‘Island Highlights’, ‘Convict Prison’, or ‘Shipyard Tales’, or a self-guided audio tour ($10).
• Not having to wake early on Sunday to get to the Island by 08:00 for registration and maps.
• A scrumptious dinner on Saturday ($16) and breakfast on Sunday ($10), provided by 1^st North Sydney Scouts.
• Getting the rogaine map on Saturday (17:30) and being able to plan your route at your leisure that night – no need to plan on Sunday morning before the event.

Glamping tents and eating facilities on Cockatoo Island

These should be pretty compelling reasons for you to make a weekend of it and camp on Cockatoo Island!

Rogainers should book accommodation as soon as possible before it is booked out by the public. Book at Cockatoo Island camping (Sydney Harbour Trust). Over two dozen glamping tents have already been taken up by rogainers. Mention in the ‘Special Requests Box’ that you are a rogainer so you will be located with fellow participants.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to participate in a rare rogaine combining land and water elements. Entries for the event will open soon – the first 220 entrants will get a free ticket on the Royale, a ferry hired exclusively for rogainers, and departing the Island immediately after the start. Please be aware that there will be a separate cap of 450 entrants in each of the 6^1/2 and 3^1/2-hour events, and this should be another reason to get your entries in early.

For event details and to enter, visit the socialgaine page on the website.

Paddy Pallin's Michael Kozok walks 14,400km

Contributed by Julian Ledger

For the past couple of years, NSW Rogaining has been fortunate to be working with Michael Kozok who is the Partnerships and Activities Coordinator at Paddy Pallin. (This year, besides the Paddy Pallin Rogaine last Sunday, they are sponsoring two other rogaines.)

Michael hails from Poland and comes across as a practical and unassuming guy. However, beneath that façade is someone quite remarkable. Firstly, he has trekked the length of South America. Then he has solo traversed Australia entirely human powered from the West Coast to Cape York via Melbourne! The remarkable film of that 14-month journey shot by Michael and directed by Simon Target recently premiered at a showing at the NSW Parliament to a standing ovation.

A second showing was scheduled at the Parliament House theatrette for this Thursday but it has sold out. However you can still use the booking page to contact the organisers and be notified about future screenings.

In the meantime, you can watch the Trailer here.

Our new Search & Rescue Plan in action

Contributed by Julian Ledger

As a rogaine event organiser, there are a few things which can affect a good night’s sleep. Did I organise enough portaloos? How do I calculate the correct quantity of ingredients to make minestrone for five hundred people? Have we printed enough maps? Are all the controls hung in the right places? What about the risk of bushfire or flood, or even snow. A risk assessment for each rogaine aims to identify and mitigate against what could go wrong.

But top of the list is what happens if a team doesn't come back. How do you go about finding them? Fortunately, the track record of NSW Rogaining has been pretty good, although there have been incidents. In 2002 there was a Paddy Pallin at Newnes when a team didn’t return. Three parties were out well into the night searching. In the morning, by which time the PolAir helicopter had gone up, the lost team self-rescued at 11:00 by walking into a farm at Glen Davis, 90km by road from the HH. They had got their compass arrow back to front and walked off the map in the opposite direction!

Mobile phones have made a difference but there can be no coverage at some bush courses. For example, at last Sunday's Paddy Pallin rogaine at Glenbrook National Park there was no signal down at the Hash House in Euroka Clearing. To deal with no mobile coverage NSWRA has two satellite phones.

There has always been an unwritten protocol for how to proceed with a search. For this year’s Paddy Pallin, a safety protocol was formally developed into a manual with help from our friends at the Victorian Rogaining Association. They already had one. A few features of the manual are:

• The search function is separate from the organisers who have the presentations and event wrap up to organise.
• No controls are collected until all teams are accounted for.
• The people most likely to find rogainers are other rogainers.
• Experienced teams are available to do a search and prepared with torches, warm clothes and extra food.
• Progressive steps to escalate a search are formalised – e.g. safety patrols; review route intention sheets; and check if the missing team's vehicle is still in the carpark.
• First aid help is on hand in case a rogainer is incapacitated on the course.
• There is a pre-determined cut off time by which emergency services must be engaged.

Last Sunday, 8 teams were late and 2 still unaccounted for by 15:30. One team was found soon after but the other remained missing. They had lodged a very ambitious flight plan. A party was dispatched with a laptop to check if they had punched the control at Red Hands Cave. They were there at 14:45 and all ended well when they returned without assistance before dark at 16:20.

There were some good learnings from the event. The new Search and Rescue Manual has now been road tested and is being fine turned before formal adoption by the Committee.

Applications are now being sought from experienced rogainers available to serve as search coordinators at future events.

NSW & ACT 2026 Rogaining Calendars

Below is the current state of play for events on the NSW and ACT calendars. The dates for two more very important interstate rogaines coming up in 2026 have also been set and the 2026 NSW ‘fridge-friendly’ printable calendar (pdf) is ready to download. For the very latest always visit the calendar page on the website.

Planning an interstate trip? Check out the ARA's National Rogaining Calendar.

In all cases, remember to check the respective websites should there be any changes since some of the events are many months away.

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