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Tour de Narrogin: A Four Stage Event

Stage 1 of the Tour: Foxes Lair MTBO

We were lucky with the weather for this, the fourth MTBO event for 2021 - there were only a few showers to deal with. Twenty six MTBO-ers came to Narrogin, most of them from Perth and a few from Dunsborough. The irrepressible trails enthusiast Michael Chin (the driving force behind Wheatbelt Cycling Collective) turned up and immediately entered his first MTBO course. We had several other newbies too.

Jack Dowling set...

The mapped area of John Forrest National Park covers a steep and bushy valley. As the park is also close to Perth an event at here is an ideal opportunity to introduce orienteering to newcomers. The Setters aimed to have beginner-friendly courses on the VE, E, M and H4 that avoided as much of the bush and climb as possible. The event was promoted via Facebook and Eventor as a beginner-friendly event and this extra promotion resulted in a big turn out of beginners.

Thirty four people...

Gunapin is traditionally a lovely area to set or compete on and it did not disappoint. There were lots of favourable comments from competitors about the courses, which is always good for a setter and controller to hear, after putting lots of time, thought and effort into designing them. It was especially pleasing to note that only 5 people DNF’d or mispunched out of over 100 entries, and also that winning times on all but the E course were within the technical guidelines. Many people did a...

A wet, windy and cold Sunday was promised by the Weather Bureau but Paul and Erica Smale and Jenny and John Major were up early to set up the Jorgensen Park event, hoping there would be some intrepid and dedicated orienteers turn up. We were not disappointed as several hearty souls defied the weather and turned out to take part. Most were lucky and only got wet from the bush as the rain eased.

A big thank you goes to Ceri for towing the caravan, Melinda for computer duties and Erica for gate...

The Secondary Schools champs were held in pleasant weather at Fred Jacoby Park on Wednesday 16^th. Participants and their teachers seemed to enjoy the day and the courses, appropriate for the age and experience of the competitors, set by Ian Fletcher. Pleasingly, 13 of the 15 schools attending the event had participants on the podium. The winning school was All Saints, edging out the previous (2019) winner, La Salle, by 4 points, with Shenton College’s small, but experienced team coming in...

It was a fine but cool day for the MTBO at Langford Park near Jarrahdale for about 30 bike riders. Rain threatened from time to time, but the sun came out and the bush looked lovely.

The standard 3-level event attracted some very experienced MTBOers as well as newcomers but was not an easy ride for some! The multiple tracks winding through the bush and Alcoa revegetation areas were reportedly tricky but generally enjoyable due to pleasant terrain.

Day 1 Middle Distance

Despite an early forecast of light drizzle, there was a total of 81 competitors on Day 1. On arrival, they were greeted by a change in the weather to windy and rainy for the duration of the event with fine weather returning after the last competitor finished. People camping had a chilly night despite a huge bonfire kindly provided by landowner Russel Thomson.

Courses were set by Peter O’Loughlin who unfortunately was unable to be present on the weekend due to a medical...

Despite the weather forecast and a Rogaine the previous day, almost 80 people came out to enjoy the courses set by Nick Dale and controlled by Ian Fletcher in some of our most challenging orienteering terrain. Many thanks to both of them. And the weather in the morning was delightful. Once the fog rolled away, we enjoyed beautiful autumn weather until after lunch. Even the control collectors only had a very light, occasional sprinkle to put up with.

Although it was showery when putting out controls on the Saturday, it cleared nicely for our mini mountain bike rogaine on Sunday morning. It was fantastic to see so many new families join us, and runners too.

A big thank you to Jack for managing all the entries and computer. The 100 km² map has been a huge undertaking by Duncan Sullivan and is WA's largest orienteering map. A lot of scouting trips were needed by Hadrien and Ellie to decide where to put the 63 controls for this score event....

Happily the Mt Billy event was held on Sunday after an interupted preparation due to Covid 19 lockdowns and restrictions. In the end with fine weather, there was a good turnout of 91 competitors who tested themselves on courses set by Matt Seward, Rachel West and Craig Dufty.

A huge tree trunk crossing Yarra Rd found on the Saturday prior to the event added some access concerns for the setters. Half the road was cleared Sunday morning when Jack Dowling used his 4WD to pull much of the tree...

 Just over 100 people enjoyed the pleasant autumn weather for the event at Whiteman Park last Sunday.  There were many who were newcomers to orienteering and it was good to see a number of students from St Brigid's School attending as practice for the June Schools Orienteering Championships.

Well defined boundaries on the E and VE courses kept younger participants on course, while on the longer courses route choice was affected by the many fences that were topped with two strands of barbed wire!...

WA’s first multi-level Sprint was a mixed success, with opinions of experienced orienteers ranging from “too hard to be enjoyable” to “the best sprint I’ve ever done.”

On the positive side, most people nevertheless seemed to ‘enjoy’ the experience. The artificial barrier in the west quadrangle caused a few grumbles but the grumblers conceded that it did add considerably to route choice options. Everyone agreed that it was very challenging both mentally, with the tremendous amount of route...

On the day before the predicted deluge associated with Cyclone Seroja, 39 people competed in the first MTBO of the year starting next to Bibra Lake and heading off into the surrounding suburbs on the hunt for 40 controls. The event was a score event and competitors had two hours to visit as many of the 40 controls as possible.

The course was set by Ben Coetzer and Brian and Anne Austen helped place the 40 controls on the morning of the event. Most of the controls were accessible by road or...

A bright sunny autumn morning saw around 80 competitors make their way around some challenging and interesting courses.
The map is a nice mixture of buildings, open paddocks, some more vegetated areas around dry creek beds and some adventure game structures.

Results can be found here.

There were some fast times with Sten Claessens winning the long course in just over 18 minutes, while his son Ruben sprinted round the easy course in just under 17 minutes. The women's long course was quite...

Today's event at the Perth Waldorf School was to be my final at setting in WA and I was ever so pleased that the school allowed us access. I had mapped the school in July last year and it was so very complex that I needed two field trips to get everything right and even then I found errors when out course checking (and sadly more when putting out controls but nothing major so I had hoped no-one would notice). The natural bush setting (and the occasional quenda or rabbit sighting) added to the...