Here is the Course Planner waiting (in the shade) for customers to arrive
These are the “OO” moments (Organisers’ Observations) from the Wednesday lunchtime event at Farrer Ridge on 12 July.
The weather was beautiful (well, for mid winter it was) prompting 43 people to hit the slopes of Farrer Ridge.
Some people were sampling the friendly, low tech Wednesday lunchtime orienteering for the first time. They included people from Street Orienteering, Map Mates and some very long time orienteers who had just never got around to it. There were even some interstate “interlopers” who are becoming regulars at OACT events.
The extensive seating provided by the organisers for marking up maps was appreciated ie the cavaletti or wooden ‘stepovers’ for horses situated at many Canberra Nature Parks; see photo on right. More photos and the maps at Facebook.
All participants claimed they enjoyed the experience, even if they missed the occasional control(s) for varying reasons; see results. Some of the explanations for missing controls were entertaining like having the map oriented at control 5 so that you read control 9 as control 6 and hence navigated from control 5 to control 9 (and then deciding it was not worth going to 6)!
Lesson of the day was:
If you get another person to mark up your map, then you really should check it yourself. Especially if it was your mother!
Next week’s event is in the far North at Mt Rogers with Bill Jones preparing the courses and he will back up on the following Saturday (21 July) as the course planner for Saturday Metro & Junior League event # 9 at The Pinnacle. And for the keen competitors, on the next day they can go Tony Garr’s ACT League event # 7 at Kowen East on Sunday 22 July.
John & Ann Scown