Newsletter Highlights

The President's Report ~ May 2003

Many of you are no doubt keen for the next event, particularly after the demise of our scheduled April event. Some of you may have ventured south to participate in the ACT Champs near Cooma, as suggested in the last newsletter as an alternative to our cancelled event. Results from that event are available on the ACTRA website, via the link on our site. For the rest of us, myself included (for different reasons!), the next eagerly awaited event is the 40th Annual Paddy Pallin 6hr Winter navigational challenge on the weekend of the 15th June.

The April Barrington Tops event was intended to be an introduction to 24hr rogaining in one of New South Wales’ most spectacular bushwalking regions. While disappointing, the decision to cancel the event was unavoidable. The reason the committee had to make this decision was due in part to environmental impact concerns the National Parks & Wildlife Service had with our requested area of usage, and the short period of time we had to recover should the NPWS concerns be unresolved. The request for consent to make use of the NPWS managed land for the upcoming Paddy Pallin event was made in early February of this year, and was only finalised on the last days of April. While the participant numbers involved in the PP event are considerable in terms of their impacts on the Park, and therefore require much consideration and consultation, it is not something the NPWS can or are able to process quickly. This is no reflection on the Service, as its primary function is to ensure the preservation of the natural environments and cultural heritage contained within the State’s network of protected areas. Catering to the requirements of recreational user groups, such as Rogainers, is a secondary (although identified) role. As displayed in the Paddy Pallin example, the requests to the NPWS for consent need to be made many months prior to the event. In defence of the organisers of the April Barrington Tops event, they did not become involved until a few days prior to the first newsletter of the year in late January. Prior to their volunteering we (the committee) had accepted that we were going to be one event less on the 2003 calendar than previous years. We learnt from the experience, and it once again reinforces the need for more volunteers to come forward, to ensure we do not have to reduce the number of events per year in the future.

We are in the process of rebuilding the Association website to provide a more useful central location of communication for all NSW Rogainers, and as a first time introduction point for newcomers. Part of this ‘rebuild’ is a change in our approach for online entries. We are installing a Bpay system, similar to that of the ACTRA. It was intended that this new system would be operational to accept online entries for the Paddy Pallin event. Unfortunately this is not to be the case, as it is still some weeks off completion. The Lake Macquarie event will hopefully be the first event to trial the new system. Once it is operational we will inform you all on how simple it is in an upcoming newsletter.

The Paddy’s event is next on the calendar, and it will be the 40th annual event in an unbroken line since 1964. A brief history of the event appears later in this newsletter. I encourage you all to be involved either as a participant, or as a volunteer on the day. Further details overleaf. I thank you all for your patience with the lack of online entries, and encourage you all to once more use the ‘old school’ paper entry method, by using the form contained in the event brochure you would have received with this newsletter. Remember there are limited places available and the closing date for entries is the 2nd June (less than 2 weeks away). And it is only an hour (and a bit) from Hornsby! See you all there.

Andy Mein

A Brief History of the Paddy Pallin Event

(Reproduced and adapted in part from Peter Tuft’s history of the event written for The Australian Orienteer in 1986).

The Paddy Pallin Orienteering Contest was first held in 1964. Occasional orienteering-type events had been held in Australia before this date, but Paddy's event is almost certainly the longest established event that bore the name 'orienteering’ in this country. The first event was held in the Euroka area, in the lower Blue Mountains. Paddy’s aim for the event was to provide a means for improving the navigational skills of bushwalkers, many of whom were more interested in enjoying the bush than in accurate navigation. However, a lack of interest in navigation can lead to varying degrees of inconvenience, not Ieast to the search parties who may be called out in extreme cases. Hence when Paddy read of the Scandinavian sport of Orienteering he decided that it was just what was needed in Australia.

Not having any detailed information on the way the sport was run overseas, Paddy invented the rules to suit the conditions. They evolved over the years as experience was gained and feedback was received from competitors. The first event was a cross-country event, similar in principle to the standard form of orienteering today. However difficulties with teams following each other led first to a type of event in which all controls had to be visited, but the order was not fixed, and then to a fixed duration score event.

The Paddy's Orienteering event was not associated with organised orienteering in NSW, but was run privately by Paddy and his family and friends. While this meant it did not achieve a prominent place in the orienteering calendar of the day, it did continue to attract bushwalkers and rogainers, many of whom did not perceive it as yet another elite event for fanatical runners (as orienteers can sometimes be seen in those circles).

For the first 15 years or so the format of the annual event did not change significantly. It was a 3-hour score event with about 20 or so controls. Competitors used to be assigned individual start times, but eventually a mass start was found to be just as satisfactory, and certainly simplified the administration. Originally there were only two entry classes: open (mostly men) and mixed. The map was always one of the standard topographic series. In the early days old army maps at a scale of one inch to the mile (l:63,360) were used. This had the potential to cause some difficulty for less experienced orienteers who may have had trouble adapting to the relative lack of detail. However, it was also a valuable experience in fine navigation in the real world, as opposed to the somewhat artificial level of detail on orienteering maps. While the format changed little over the years, the style of the course was eventually brought into line with modern orienteering and rogaining practice.

Right up into his mid-eighties, Paddy was active in setting out controls. The main organisation was done by Paddy's son Robert, with help from his wife Nancy, and various friends who volunteered from time to time.

Chronology of Paddy’s Orienteering events:

1st 1964 Euroka
2nd 1965 Euroka
3rd 1966 Euroka
4th 1967 Euroka
5th 1968 Long Angle Gully
6th 1969 St Albans
7th 1970 Mellong
8th 1971 Wheeny Creek
9th 1972 New Yards
10th 1973 New Yards
11th 1974 Lawson Ridge
12th 1975 Lawson Ridge
13th 1976 Grose Road, Faulconbridge Ridge
14th 1977 Mt Hay Road, North Katoomba
15th 1978 Chapman Road, Faulconbridge
16th 1979 North Katoomba
17th 1980 Linden Ridge
18th 1981 Colo Heights, west of Putty Road
19th 1982 Colo Heights, east of Putty Road
20th 1983 Culoul Range/Tari Creek
21st 1984 Colo Heights, east of Putty Road
22nd 1985 Mellong Swamps
23rd 1986 Mellong, Putty Road
24th 1987 Howes Valley, Putty Road

(This list to 1985 was reconstructed from memory during discussion between Paddy and Robert Pallin, with Peter Tuft, so there is a little uncertainty about some of the locations).