The open area and short courses at the Victory Memorial Gardens resulted in some fast times on Mother's Day. 

Mother of two Briohny Seaman slipped around the 1500 m “Mothers & Others Course” in a quick 12.04 finishing 2½ minutes ahead of husband Trent. Alex Davey was third.

Fresh from her second places in the individual and relay races at the Schools Orienteering Day, Freya Matthews backed up to win the 600 m “Mothers Meander” course with sister Phoebe. Ryder and Logan Seaman came second.

Sixty eight children participated in the 2019 Riverina Schools Orienteering Day conducted on Willan's Hill last Thursday.  Primary and secondary schools from Cootamundra, Ladysmith, Wagga Wagga, Yanco, Henty and Walla Walla were represented. Many were experiencing orienteering for the first time.

The day commenced with a 500 m Map Walk in which all participants were provided with some basic information about how the different features such as tracks, earth walls, watercourses, individual trees were represented by symbols on the map and about how to navigate. This was followed by the individual races and then a relay.

Cootamundra Public School dominated the 1.0 km Boys 10-11 class. Alex Brown competed very well to win by just over a minute from school mate Austin Franklin. Cootamundra also dominated the 1.3 km Boys 12-13 age-class in which Oscar Philp managed to hold off a fast finishing Riley Hartshorn for a 52 second victory.

In the 1.0km Girls 10-12 age-group Ladysmith Public School dominated. Zoe Willis absolutely blitzed the field winning by almost 11 minutes and finishing in half the time taken by runner up Indiana Cole. Charlotte Priest recorded an equally impressive time winning the 1.0 km G12-13 class. She finished 2½ minutes ahead of TRAC’s Freya Matthews with Wagga High School’s Layla Byrnes in third place.

It was much closer in the 1.3 km G14-15 age-class. Wagga High School managed a trifecta with Emily Livio just holding off school mates Sophie Ramage and Mackenzie Williams.

Logan Butler ( Wagga High School) won the 1.6 km B14-15 age-class in good style from Henry Cook (Mater Dei Catholic College) and Harry Bunt (Yanco Agricultural High School).

The 1.6 km G16+ class saw the tightest margin of the day. Jo McDougall (Wagga High School) just held off school mate Lily Stein by a narrow 20 seconds. Dekota Jones (Wagga High School) came third but was just a mere 17 seconds further back and Hayley Hutchinson was just 10 seconds in arrears in fourth place.

The B16+ class was also a tight competition. Jack Janetzki (St Pauls College, Walla Walla) eventually prevailed by just 42 seconds over Wagga High School’s Cameron McDougall . Kobe Priest (Mater Dei) finished third but was 9 minutes off the hot pace set by the leaders.

The relay proved to be a hotly contested affair although the prevalence of control flags in the area confused some and a number of teams mispunched. Wagga High School Team 1 ( Jack Hutchinson, Willis Gray, and Cameron McDougall) had a narrow 9 second victory from a composite team of (Freya Matthews, TRAC; Tom Janetzki, Lutheran Primary, Henty; and Jack Janetzki, St Pauls, Walla). The all-girl Wagga High School Team 2 ( Dekota Jones, Lily Stein, and Maycy Scott) surprised many of the boys teams with a very good third place just 3 minutes off the pace. Yanco Agricultural High School finished fourth.

All courses offered a variety of challenges to test navigational skills. Starting at the south-east end of the forest participants had to work their way up some steeps slopes looking for small gullies or particular rock features before working their way around some longer legs across a plateau and finishing with a series of short legs through detailed rocky terrain. The hill climbs and intricacy of the rocky terrain meant times were slower than usually expected.

In the Interclub Orienteering Challenge points are awarded to participants for participating and completing their course and to the placegetters in each course. The points earned by placegetters are weighted in favour of the longer and harder navigation courses. Each of the four courses was won by a Waggaroos orienteer which provided valuable points for the club.

Although John Oliver (W) won the 5.9 km course and got Waggaroos off to a good start he was the only Waggaroo on that course. As a consequence Albury scored more than half their points for the day on this course. John’s finished almost 8 minutes ahead of Albury’s Fab Andreoni with Rob Simmons (A) a further 7 minute back in third place. Albury won this course 21:8.

Waggaroos Stuart Young had an even more convincing win on the 4.1 km Hard course finishing almost 13 minutes ahead of Liz Wood (A). It was an impressive performance in the tricky terrain. Waggaroos junior Jack Janetzki had some problems early in the course but still did well enough to finish third ahead of Albury’s Norm McCann and give Waggaroos a 12:8 win on this course.

Waggaroos then scored a quinella on the 3.3 km Moderate course which required two traversing's of a reasonably steep hillside. Dale Clegg (W) improved considerably on his performance at Rocky Hill three weeks ago to win by almost 18 minutes ahead of Waggaroos juniors Jo and Cam McDougall. The quinella gave Waggaroos an 11:6 win on the Moderate course.

Waggaroos then finished well scoring well on the 2.0 km Easy course. Waggaroos Junior Tom Janetzki won ahead of the Farquhar family. Robbie and Ian McDougall finished third and ahead of the first Albury participant to give Waggaroos a 16:4 win on the Easy course.

Overall Waggaroos won the day 47: 39 but after the two events Albury lead 102:94.

Results:

It was the first time this area had been used for orienteering in almost 20 years and the new map was literally dotted with rock features. The only tracks in the area are the perimeter road and the trail over the main hill which meant participants on the harder navigational courses really had to focus on the contour detail and use flat rocks and thickets as the main navigational aids. The power poles on the lower slopes became valuable features for checking ones position.

The map scale is 1:5000, unusual for a "bush" map so courses were somewhat shorter than a traditional forest event. However, the steep slopes were as difficult to come down as they were to go up and challenged participants with decisions on whether to go straight and face a difficult ascent or descent or to try and contour around the hill and alleviate the pain.

The hard navigation courses comprised some longer legs across the hillside, a few physically demanding legs over the ridge followed by some short sharp legs involving various directional changes.

On the 3.4 km hard course the battle for placings was quite tight with final placings largely being decided by accuracy of navigation rather than running speed. Stuart Young prevailed holding off veteran John Oliver by just over 3 minutes with NSW representative Briohny Seaman well in the mix a further minute behind. These three were well ahead of the rest of the field. By contrast Sean Sunley won the 2.7 km hard course comfortably from Wes Campbell and Shani Rajasekera.

The 2.5 km moderate navigational course had fewer serious hill climbs but the scarcity of tracks made it somewhat of a challenge. Iona and Brendan Judd triumphed over the Hatherly family by just over 10 minutes.

The 1.4 km easy navigation course did utilise the few tracks in the area and comprised a slow climb to the top of the hill and a quick descent thereafter picking up various boulder features along the way. Rob and Joannah McDougall ripped around the course in a very quick 12:38 to finish in almost half the time of their parents and second placegetters Deb and Ian McDougall. The fast pace also helped Joannah win handicap honours for the day. Julie Gooding and son Jarrah finished in third place just ahead of the group of Mel and Baxter Pike, Tim Rudd and Logan Seaman.

The next event will be held in the Murraguldrie State Forest on Sunday 28 April. From Wagga drive south towards Tumbarumba. About 6 km after crossing over the Hume Highway turn right at the main Murraguldrie State Forest sign and follow the orienteering signs to the start. This will be the second event of the Interclub Challenge against Albury and will commence at 10 am.

Rocky Hill results:

Weight of numbers conspired against Waggaroos in the first event of the Interclub Challenge against Albury last Sunday.

Held over eight events points are awarded for participation as well as performance. One point is awarded for starting and another for successfully completing a course. Placegetters on each course earn bonus points which are weighted according to the navigational difficulty and distance.

Event 1 was conducted at Magenta Mine just outside Chiltern in northern Victoria. Because it was closer to Albury, Waggaroos were well outnumbered resulting in Albury gaining many more points for participation. However, Waggaroos acquitted themselves well and earned many points from bonus points as placegetters.

The area was typical spur-gully terrain with an intricate network of small gullies fanning out along broad hillsides. The forest was open and runnable despite the early morning rain tempting participants to aim directly at the target feature. However care had to be taken not to become confused between the very similar looking gullies. Opportunities to run wider to more distinct features existed so the navigational challenge was to picking the best option.

The 6.2 km Hard course comprised a number of legs across the hillsides testing participant’s abilities to read the contour detail. Briohny Seaman and John Oliver did very well finishing 1^st and 3^rd and scoring well for Waggaroos. However with Tony Perrott (A) splitting the pair and several other Albury orienteers finishing the course Albury managed to win the class 17:14.

It was a similar story on the 5.0 km Hard course in which Waggaroos Jack Janetzki and Deb Davey came 1^st and 2^nd to score well but Albury by weight of participating numbers were able to also win that course 23:13.

Albury dominated the 3.2 km Moderate course. This course challenged participants with a number of quite short legs to very specific features such as small crags and depressions and knolls. It was essential to leave each control in the correct direction to avoid being lured into the wrong gully system. Despite Waggaroos Wes Campbell, Pauline Moore and Bob Moore finishing 3 rd, 4^th and 6^th Albury managed to win this course 21:8.

Waggaroos did have success on the 1.9 km Easy Course. Tom Janetzki and Sam Klemke won just ahead of John Janetzki. Kath Oliver was off the pace in 3^rd place but it was enough for Waggaroos to win the course 12:2.

Overall Albury won the day 63:47. Next event in the Interclub Challenge will be held closer to Wagga in the Murraguldrie State Forest and will give Waggaroos the chance to dominate participation.

Next local event will be conducted on Sunday 7 April at Rocky Hill commencing at 10 am from the southern end of Stellway Close, Kooringal.

Starting from Wagga Beach participants had to visit specific locations around central Wagga to find the answer to questions within a set time limit. Course setter Julie Sunley put an interesting slant on the St Valentine’s Day event with the answer to most questions being a date. Points were awarded for correct answers and deducted for exceeding the time limit.

Participants had to plan their courses well. There were numerous point scoring opportunities clustered around the Wollundry Lagoon including a couple of higher valued tempters. However once these had been taken participants were faced with a long run either north or south to the next logical batch of controls. This took them away from the finish area and increased the risk of exceeding their time limit. To the south there were numerous lower valued control sites along the river to the railway viaduct but this pretty much forced a zig-zag return through the CBD again risking exceeding the time limit. To the north were a few tempting high valued controls sites after which participants were faced with a long run to get any further points.

Briohny Seaman chose to head south towards the railway viaduct and then come through the CBD to the Civic Theatre precinct. The tactic worked well and she picked up answers at regular intervals to amass an excellent 125 points within her 30 minute time limit. 

The Priest family, Bernadette, Charlotte and Harriet, finished second with 80 points. They chose to follow the river part of the way south to Tony Ireland Reserve and then headed across to the Wollundry Lagoon area but did get caught out finishing 1½ minutes late.

Pauline Moore also did very well finishing in third place on the 30 minute course with 70 points and scored the bragging rights over husband Bob who finished fourth with 60 points. She also won the handicap honours for the second week in a row.

John Oliver won the 45 minute course with 130 points. He took a very similar route as Briohny Seaman and finished with just 5 points more although he had the advantage of an extra 15 minutes. Waggaroos junior Jack Janetzki finished second with a good 105 points. Bryan Hardy from the Wullundigong orienteering club in Western Australia finished third with 100 points. Bryan took a similar route to the Priest family but in reverse and managed to pick up 10 points more.

The next event in the Waggaroos Summer Orienteering Series will start at 6 pm in Burns Way next to the Civic Theatre.

Briohny Seaman had a superb win in event 7 of the Waggaroos Summer Orienteering Series in Estella last Thursday evening.

As usual participants had to visit specific locations in the area to find the answer to questions within a set time limit. Questions included identifying particular features within laneways, particulars about various signs, and numbers on electrical sub-stations. Points were awarded for correct answers and deducted for exceeding the time limit.

Starting from the playground in Manneke Park the course included a number of lower value control sites in the northern part of Estella and some higher value ones further away to provide participants with the option of running further to sites with higher value or obtaining a high score by visiting many more sites close by. Although the numerous laneways and open areas allowed reasonable access between the various cul-de-sacs most found themselves doubling back and retracing footsteps during their course.

Briohny Seaman chose to participate on the 30 minute course to pick up many of the higher valued sites and in spite of returning 3 minutes early amassed an outstanding 215 points.  This was 75 points more than second placegetter Alex Davey who has been consistently winning summer series events this season and just 15 points fewer than John Oliver who participated on the 45 minute course for 12 minutes longer.

Pauline Moore also did very well finishing in third place on the 30 minute course and won the handicap for the evening.

The next event in the Waggaroos Summer Orienteering Series will start at 6 pm at Wagga Wagga Beach on Thursday 14th February.

The event was held around Bourkelands and involved visiting specific locations in the area to find the answer to questions within a set time limit. Because of the warm weather participants were restricted to a 30 minute time limit to find as many answers as possible. Questions included identifying particular features in gardens, specific wording on signs, and the numbers on specific power poles. Points were awarded for correct answers and deducted for exceeding the time limit.

Starting from the playground at the southern end of Yarrawah Crescent the course was designed with a number of lower value control sites close by and fewer higher valued ones further away. This was in anticipation of warm running conditions and provided participants with the option of running further to sites with higher value or obtaining a high score by visiting many more sites close by.

Alex Davey chose to run further afield to higher valued sites whereas Wes Campbell and the Sunleys chose to stay closer in. Interestingly Alex was the only one who managed to finish within the allotted time limit. As the time limit approached, those closer in were tempted to take one more site for a few extra points because it did not seem to be far out of the way.

The next event in the Waggaroos Summer Orienteering Series will start at 6pm at Manneke Park in Pugsley Dr, Estella just north of Doman St.