2006 ACT Championships
"Bourndagaine" - 2006 ACT Championships, Bournda National Park - 8-9 July 2006
Story from Keith Conley: What a cool pun. I'm not sure that's how I felt though at the end of a mentally gruelling, but very satisfying and beautiful rogaine. I have never experienced an event that was so taxing on whatever navigation skills I possessed. I was constantly bamboozled by the terrain and could only relax when I regained a track. It was a night of compass terror for me and Tristram as we struggled to make sense of the steep and rugged land west of the main road. We found all the controls we attempted, but some through sheer luck and most were extremely hard won. At one point we made simultaneous 180 degree errors and were dumbfounded to find a broad spur where a few minutes before we were sure we had crossed a gnarly creek after dropping a steep slope. It was that kind of night. It was an absolute delight to be climbing Bournda Trig as daylight broke, thus ending a very long and cold period of slippery vine-infested gullies and blister-busting slopes. Having completed the GeoQuest adventure race (240 kms and 44 hours of on the go in similar terrain) just a few weeks previously, I can confidently say that a 24 hour rogaine is much the harder event.
My partner for this adventure, Tristram Miller, is well remembered in the ACT orienteering community as an extremely capable navigator and strong runner. I've known Tristram since we both competed for separate colleges at the ANU in the legendary Inward Bound event. Tris had never entered a 24 hour rogaine before and he was both excited and a little nervous about the prospect. At noon he was charged up and fair bolted from the blocks, spurred on by a bit of banter and competition with an 8hr team that had a similar route along the northern section of the course. This mini challenge was a real boost for our efforts to amass a reasonable score. The pace was fast and Tris was keen to make up in navigation what we lost in speed (my speed!). By sunset we had nearly 1500 points under our belts. Thanks Marty and Phillo!
Then night descended and we may as well have been transported to a different planet. Tris found the transition difficult and annoying. Orienteers often find the vagaries and fuzziness of our maps unendurable when night descends and vision is restricted to a small band of light. Tris and I were soon in a pointed discussion about how we needed to keep each others spirits up as things got tough. I found it a very emotional night as my mind wandered on events over the year and a deep nausea set in. I don't think either of us enjoyed any aspect of the evening. The normal rush of blood and whoops of joy that comes with finding a particularly difficult control in the dark were absent. And it was surprisingly cold for the coast. That's my whingeing over. Fortunately we kept the task in mind and soon adjusted our route plan to avoid the heinous gullies and use spurs as much as possible. This worked pretty well at keeping us going at a consistent pace, but made the navving so much harder as the good attack points were mostly off creek junctions at the bottom of parachute jumps. We were forced to use vague, twisting indistinct ridgelines to get as close to our desired gully as possible and then bear off in the hope we had the right descent. We got it wrong quite a lot and had some tricky recoveries to fight. We also tried to stick as close to tracks as we could and avoid any long legs cross-country. This proved a good survival tactic as it conserved our strength and let us launch again once the sun rose over the ocean. For me the best memory was hearing the ocean waves from atop a sunny and warm Bournda Trig. I knew then that both our spirits were on the rise as we sensed the end wasn't far away and that we would have more of the spectacular coast to enjoy as we finished our race. It was fantastic to start seeing other teams after a very lonely night. I often wonder if I am a complete eccentric in my course setting because I hardly ever come across others. A slight miscalculation in how quick we would finish in the morning meant we were caught with not much to get at the end and so finished a little early. Amazingly we had hot showers to jump under and apologies to NPWS, but we greedily ignored their pleas to keep them short.
Thanks to Dave and Julie and all the other people who put so much effort into making one of these amazing things happen. This is a fair dinkum unique Australian sport and I would urge everyone who enjoys it to make an effort to introduce at least one person to it over the next year and to also assist at an event if you can.
Read MoreStory from Keith Conley: What a cool pun. I'm not sure that's how I felt though at the end of a mentally gruelling, but very satisfying and beautiful rogaine. I have never experienced an event that was so taxing on whatever navigation skills I possessed. I was constantly bamboozled by the terrain and could only relax when I regained a track. It was a night of compass terror for me and Tristram as we struggled to make sense of the steep and rugged land west of the main road. We found all the controls we attempted, but some through sheer luck and most were extremely hard won. At one point we made simultaneous 180 degree errors and were dumbfounded to find a broad spur where a few minutes before we were sure we had crossed a gnarly creek after dropping a steep slope. It was that kind of night. It was an absolute delight to be climbing Bournda Trig as daylight broke, thus ending a very long and cold period of slippery vine-infested gullies and blister-busting slopes. Having completed the GeoQuest adventure race (240 kms and 44 hours of on the go in similar terrain) just a few weeks previously, I can confidently say that a 24 hour rogaine is much the harder event.
My partner for this adventure, Tristram Miller, is well remembered in the ACT orienteering community as an extremely capable navigator and strong runner. I've known Tristram since we both competed for separate colleges at the ANU in the legendary Inward Bound event. Tris had never entered a 24 hour rogaine before and he was both excited and a little nervous about the prospect. At noon he was charged up and fair bolted from the blocks, spurred on by a bit of banter and competition with an 8hr team that had a similar route along the northern section of the course. This mini challenge was a real boost for our efforts to amass a reasonable score. The pace was fast and Tris was keen to make up in navigation what we lost in speed (my speed!). By sunset we had nearly 1500 points under our belts. Thanks Marty and Phillo!
Then night descended and we may as well have been transported to a different planet. Tris found the transition difficult and annoying. Orienteers often find the vagaries and fuzziness of our maps unendurable when night descends and vision is restricted to a small band of light. Tris and I were soon in a pointed discussion about how we needed to keep each others spirits up as things got tough. I found it a very emotional night as my mind wandered on events over the year and a deep nausea set in. I don't think either of us enjoyed any aspect of the evening. The normal rush of blood and whoops of joy that comes with finding a particularly difficult control in the dark were absent. And it was surprisingly cold for the coast. That's my whingeing over. Fortunately we kept the task in mind and soon adjusted our route plan to avoid the heinous gullies and use spurs as much as possible. This worked pretty well at keeping us going at a consistent pace, but made the navving so much harder as the good attack points were mostly off creek junctions at the bottom of parachute jumps. We were forced to use vague, twisting indistinct ridgelines to get as close to our desired gully as possible and then bear off in the hope we had the right descent. We got it wrong quite a lot and had some tricky recoveries to fight. We also tried to stick as close to tracks as we could and avoid any long legs cross-country. This proved a good survival tactic as it conserved our strength and let us launch again once the sun rose over the ocean. For me the best memory was hearing the ocean waves from atop a sunny and warm Bournda Trig. I knew then that both our spirits were on the rise as we sensed the end wasn't far away and that we would have more of the spectacular coast to enjoy as we finished our race. It was fantastic to start seeing other teams after a very lonely night. I often wonder if I am a complete eccentric in my course setting because I hardly ever come across others. A slight miscalculation in how quick we would finish in the morning meant we were caught with not much to get at the end and so finished a little early. Amazingly we had hot showers to jump under and apologies to NPWS, but we greedily ignored their pleas to keep them short.
Thanks to Dave and Julie and all the other people who put so much effort into making one of these amazing things happen. This is a fair dinkum unique Australian sport and I would urge everyone who enjoys it to make an effort to introduce at least one person to it over the next year and to also assist at an event if you can.
