Kelly Munyard tried orienteering for the first time and did well enough to win her course at the Waggaroos orienteering event at Pomingalarna Park last Sunday. Kelly participated on the Easy navigation course which allowed participants to follow various linear features such as paths and watercourses. With numerous bike tracks in the area the main challenge was ensuring the correct one was followed. Kelly’s winning time was almost 10 minutes ahead of the Hatherly family who finished second. Kath Oliver finished third.

The 3.3 km Moderate navigation course did enable linear features to be followed but also provided options for cutting across country to pick up major catching features that led into the target feature. Target features included a number of the earth walls and earth mounds that populate the hillsides so the challenge was in keeping track of which earth wall you were following or crossing. Iona Judd, Melissa Comrey and Lauren Edmonson teamed up together to tackle this course and enjoyed a leisurely wander through the forest.

The 3.7 km and 5.1 km Hard navigation courses looped and zig-zagged across the hillsides in a way that made strict following of linear features difficult. Participants had to move from one set of linear features to a second or third in order to find the target features. On these courses the target features included many point features such as small patches of rocky ground, or isolated pits, and knolls.

On the 3.7 km Hard course Waggaroos John Oliver held on to win from ACT’s Ann Scown with Alex Redhead finishing third.

The 5.1 km Hard course was dominated by ACT orienteers. Grant McDonald won comfortably ahead of John Scown and Mary McDonald. Waggaroos Phil Roy was off the pace but did well to finish fourth.

Next Sunday the Interclub Challenge Series against Albury resumes with event 5 at 9 Mile Hill commencing at 10 am. Drive to Gerogery along the Olympic Way and turn right at the Gerogery Hotel into Main St towards Jindera. 9 Mile Hill is about 18 km along this road on the left.

Results:

Seven year-old Ryder Seaman won the Easy course; his father, Trent, won the Moderate course; his mother, Briohny, won the long Hard course; and his grandmother, Deb Davey, won the short Hard course to guide Waggaroos to a 52:38 victory for the day and consolidate the overall lead in the Interclub Orienteering Challenge.

The first part of the 1400 m Easy Course involved a nice downhill section along a well formed track, then led participants along a small path before a long uphill climb across semi-open farmland along a watercourse. Ryder Seaman coped admirably winning by almost 10 minutes and gain handicap honours for the day.  There was a good tussle for second place with the Hatherly family group just gaining the ascendancy over Kath Oliver by a mere 9 seconds. Six year old Jarrah Mestan finished fourth. Because there were no Albury representatives on this course Waggaroos amassed a valuable 14 points.

The 2.8 km Moderate Course alternated between the farmland and woodland that had numerous discrete rock features. As well as testing navigational ability across the hills it also involved a couple of steep climbs that tested physical abilities as well. Trent Seaman did an excellent job for Waggaroos winning the course finishing almost five minutes ahead of Josh Roy, Albury’s first orienteer to finish. ACT’s Ann Scown finished in third place. Waggaroos Dale Clegg and Wes Campbell then held off Albury’s John Trevivian to ensure Waggaroos won the Moderate course 14:7.

The hard courses took participants into some complex rock terrain and across numerous steep hills. Participants had to be careful not to get too far off their line because relocating proved to be difficult and invariably required another steep climb. One control site in particular proved to be the undoing of several orienteers possibly because of its location half way up a hillside and with many of the nearby attack features appearing to be similar enough to cause confusion. It was those who found this control site quickly who did well.

On the 3.5 km Hard Course Waggaroos Deb Davey found it quickly and had a very comfortable victory, winning by almost 11 minutes. In the context of the Interclub Challenge points this course was a much more even affair. Rick Armstrong finished second to score valuable points for Albury. John Oliver (W) then managed to finish third ahead of Albury’s Liz Wood and grab the remaining bonus points and give Waggaroos a slight advantage. This was enhanced when Shani Rajasekera (W) finished and the remaining three Albury orienteers failed to finish giving Waggaroos a 14:11 win on this course.

Albury did have some success on the 4.9 m Hard Course. Waggaroos Briohny Seaman had a strong win but then four Albury participants finished before Waggaroos Tadeusz Davenport and Lachlan Campbell to give Albury a 20:10 points win on this course.

On the day though Waggaroos prevailed with a 52:38 point win and at the half way point Waggaroos lead the series 187:174.

Event 5 in the Interclub Orienteering Challenge will be conducted on Sunday 7 July at 9 mile Hill near Albury.

The next local event will be on Sunday 30 June at Pomingalarna Park commencing at 10 am. The start will be at the western entrance to Pomingalarna Park about 500 m west of Kapooka Rd (San Isadore turnoff).

The lovely sunny morning attracted a number of family groups many of whom were attempting orienteering for the first time.

Starting from the south west end of Willan's Hill off Mimosa St, the 1900 m Easy navigation course enabled participants to make use of the numerous track and paths in the area although one leg required following a long earth wall through the scrub.Times were quite close and competitive despite many newcomers. Phoebe and Simon Matthews were quickest around finishing just over a minute ahead of Jarrah Mestan and Julie Gooding. Freya Matthews was not far off the pace and finished well in third place. The Farquhar males, Duncan and Alexander, finished just ahead of the Farquhar females, Emily & Ella.

Following their successful completion of the Easy course the Simon, Freya and Phoebe Matthews then teamed up to attempt the 2.2 km Moderate navigation course. Laura and Suzy Shelton did similarly.

Although the distance is only slightly longer than the Easy course the Moderate course challenges participants with options for cutting across country through the scrub whereas the Easy course is more constrained to obvious track and path options. On Willan's Hill there are numerous earth walls that are relatively easy to follow particularly when the forest floor is as open as currently.

Both groups coped very well with the step up in navigation and the Matthews family added to their Easy course successes recording the quickest time on the Moderate course.

Alex Davey had a convincing win on the 3.8 km Hard navigation course. Both Hard navigation courses included a number of control sites north of Baden Powell Dr that involved some steep uphill and downhill climbs. Alex finished well ahead of newcomer Stuart McDougall with Bob Moore managing to grab third place ahead of Dale Clegg.

On the 5.4 km Hard course Briohny Seaman finished a strong 12 minutes ahead of John Oliver.

Results:

Waggaroos orienteers won three of the four courses to secure a good win in event 3 of the Interclub Orienteering Challenge against Albury last Sunday. In the Interclub Challenge points are awarded to participants for participation, successful completion of their chosen course, and to placegetters on each course.

Event 3 was conducted at Walbundrie in lightly wooded terrain across three low hills covered with various rock features.

Deb Davey led the Waggaroos charge on the 4.6 km Hard navigation course with a narrow 31 second victory over Albury’s Leigh Privett. Alex Davey was a further minute behind in third place but well ahead of the next three orienteers who were all from Albury. This enabled Waggaroos to win on this course by the narrowest of margins 14:13.

Junior orienteer Jack Janetzki was the only Waggaroo on the 3.5 km Hard navigation course but led the field home with a convincing 18 minute win over Albury’s Emma Flower. The points he earned were valuable even though by weight of numbers Albury won this class 15:7.

The reverse happened on the 3.2 km Moderate navigation course where Emma Joyce was the only Albury participant and won the course. She was closely followed by Waggaroos Dale Clegg, Bob Moore and Wes Campbell and weight of numbers meant Waggaroos won this course 11:6.

Only two participated on the 1.5 km Easy course, both Waggaroos. Tom Janetzki won comfortably from Pauline Moore. The 9 points earned on this course gave Waggaroos a 41:35 victory for the day.

After three events Albury lead by the narrowest of margins 136:135 ensuring some fascinating competition in future rounds.

The next Waggaroos local event is on 2nd June on Willan's Hill, starting in Mimosa Drive, near the intersection of Erica Street, starts from 10 am to 12 noon.

Walbundrie results:

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.