A perfect day for orienteering was enjoyed by 39 people in 25 teams at the Blue Hole on Sunday.

Don Barker went out early on the 5.4 km Hard 1 course and set the winning time of 69:30, beating daughter Felicity and Preston Zambo by 2 minutes, with Felix Burkhard a further 2.5 minutes behind.

Best kilometre rate of the day was Eric Baker on the 4.2 km Hard 2 course. His rate of 12:07 min/km on the shorter course just beat Don's rate of 12:46 min/km an Hard 1. Jenny Hawkins struggled with the adventurous direct route across the river from control 4 to 5 but still had the second best time on that leg and was second overall. Robert Preston came in third after leading for the first three controls.

Michael Smart showed his speed to win the Moderate course by 12 minutes, having won all except three of the legs, and relative newcomer Ben Abbot did well to come in second, with Julia Preston a further 7:40 behind.

Well done to newcomer Kathleen Lenehan who completed the Easy course in just over 45 minutes.
Following the event, many people enjoyed a picnic in the mild sunny conditions.

Maurice Anker

Well Armidale’s minimum temp was officially –10 C on Sunday, so congratulations to all who braved the cold and came out to Dangar’s Falls – it turned out to be a beautiful winter’s day.

However I’ve noticed a side effect of being in the bush after a couple of decent frosts – chiggers! I’ve got a few itchy lumps, mostly around the waist line. These minute biting creatures are known to become active in frosty weather, so conditions are clearly perfect for them! This article, although published in the US, is reasonably helpful: https://www.emedicinehealth.com/chiggers/article_em.htm

As people returned and downloaded their results, it became clear that there was no such thing as a "short" or "easy" course on Sunday. Times were long, irrespective of course, and it can be safely said that nearly everyone got their money’s worth! The fastest (in terms of mins/km) were Oscar & Sam Woolford on the Long Hard course (both under 14 mins/km), with Felix & Maurice (Short Hard) 3rd & 4th.

The toughest challenge of the day was the 7th leg of the Long Hard course, which crossed a very deep gully/creek/ravine. Sam Woolford’s direct approach was quickest (12:42), but Don Barker, with half a century more experience, also went straight and despite wasting some time relocating, was only 35s behind Sam! Oscar Woolford and Helen O’Callaghan, who both went around the deep ravine, were significantly slower. However the 115 metre climb clearly left Don completely shattered, as he was slowest of the 4 on all subsequent legs.

I managed to collect 19 controls in 2 hours on Sunday afternoon (the 6 most remote are still out there as I write) – much quicker than when putting them out. At about 3:00 pm, I heard a Lyre Bird between Moderate Short course controls 3 & 4 (5 & 6 on the Long). I looked down the hill and saw 3 (yes three!) male Lyre Birds quietly walking away, as if to say "Singing? Wasn’t me...".

If you look at the results for the last 3 events on the club website (www.ntoc.asn.au) you will see "Livelox" in brackets. If you click on Livelox next to Dangars Falls, it will take you to a page showing Sunday’s courses. Click on "Replay" and you can view an animation of where people went on their courses. Also, if you click on "Table" (LH top of page), you can view the split times (times for each leg) for all entrants on the course you selected. For example, if I select the Moderate 1 (Long) course, I can see that, although Andreas Tillman won that class quite comfortably, on leg 5 he was slowest – by 10 minutes (Colin & Steven from Tamworth were quickest on that leg)!

To add your own course, choose "Add route" from the initial Livelox page. It is possible to either hand-draw your route choices from memory, or upload a GPS trace. However, you will need to be logged on, using your Eventor username & password. If you do not have an Eventor account, but would like to be able to record your own unique approach to doing your course, contact Maurice (manker@tpg.com.au) or myself (alec@wattfamily.com.au) and we should be able to help.

Alec Watt