Orienteering in South East Queensland

12:00 Thursday 30th April 2009
"Bluestone Creek South" 1:10,000 5m
UBD 193P5 26km W of Brisbane CBD
"Long" 5km 345m climb (6.9%)

What a horrible experience. 7% climb is a killer. On both 2 and 3 I went straight to the circle but couldn't find the control for about 5 minutes. My time of 82 minutes (16mpk) and 5th placing of 8 looks fairly ordinary but was only 6 minutes behind Mike (14.8mpk); the mistakes more than make up the difference.

The numbers are upside down because I copied the course upside down.

09:00 Sunday 26th April 2009
"Harding's Paddock" 2007 1:10,000 5m
40km SW of Brisbane CBD
"Red 3" 18 controls 4.9km 195m climb (4%)

A few of the controls were tough to find - it was as if the controls were put out by two different people, one hung them high and clear, the other did his best to hide them. 7 was findable but 8 was a lottery and it took 6 of us to find it.

8-9 I took more or less straight but relocated where the two gullies meet 150m SW of the control.

9-10 I should have gone left along the track but went right.

My time of 59 minutes felt ordinary but it put me in 4th place of 28 people, 4 minutes behind the winner.

12:00 Thursday 23rd April 2009
"Bunyaville West" 2003 1:10,000 5m
UBD 117P4 14km NW of Brisbane CBD
"Long" 4.8km 250m climb (5.2%)

I found 5 by bouncing off the road. I took the track to 7, counted off the gullies and attacked from the second, missed entirely and never did find it. I guess I was too far south because 8 was a nightmare. I then lost interest and DNFed.

Gary finished in 57 minutes (11.9mpk).

09:00 Sunday 19th April
"Stockyard South" 2004 1:10,000 5m
UBD 223H1 19km SE of Brisbane CBD
"Long" 5.1km 170m climb (3.3%)

I had a good run taking 59 minutes (11.6mpk) which was 10 minutes and 10 places behind the winner. The K rates seem slow but there were a lot of controls to pick up.

12:00 Thursday 16th April 2009
"Anzac Park" 2008 1:7,500 5m
UBD 158N16 7km W of Brisbane CBD
"Long" 19 controls 4.9km 190m climb (3.9%)

I was happy with 54 minutes, 6 minutes and 6 places behind Nina.

12:00 Thursday 9th April 2009
"Centenary Parklands" 2008 1:10,000 5m
UBD 197D13 15km SW of Brisbane CBD
"Long" 5.9km 95m climb (1.6%)

I organised this event. The long was won in 52 minutes (8.8mpk) which is more time than it took me to collect them on my MTB starting from home. There were a few grumbles about the control codes being wrong (as in, I didn't bother with them at all.)

09:45 Sunday 5th April 2009
"Samford MTBO" 2009 1:25,000 25m
UBD 106E14 20km NW of Brisbane CBD
"Medium" 90 minute score 10 controls

What a shocker, a rather what a learning process! I've more or less learned to ride my new bike without falling off and this was my second MTBO event after winning at Murrenbong against a field of noobs.

In a mass start of 20+ riders I recognised two other orienteers and it turned out we each chose the same loop and cooperated to some extent. Off up the road to 40 and we couldn't find the track until the next door landowner pointed it out to us so that wasted a few minutes. At the foot of the track was a flooded creek - it had been raining all night. Three of us working together took 10 minutes to get our bikes across the creek and my first split was nearly 18 minutes!

48 and 31 were easy but 36 was almost invisible in a sea of grass, another cooperative effort to find it.

The map at 53 isn't quite right - we were looking for a track junction at the creek but it was slightly before the creek, and we spent a couple of minutes finding it.

The same problem at 42, where the map is completely wrong - the track junction was before the creek, not significantly after as shown on the map. Another few minutes wasted, but by now we were learning not to trust the map detail, just the tracks.

37, 43, 36, 47 easy - the latter helped by a blow-up map picked up at 36. By then time was short so I set off back, wasted time looking for 44 the other side of another flooded creek and got back 70 seconds late. I screwed up by not taking a watch and relying on my mobile in my pocket which thankfully survived the creek.

I travelled only 8.5km as the crow flies, maybe 12km on the tracks, a K rate similar to running!

At home a closer look revealed that the Magnetic North lines on the map are wrong. When correcting the GIS source for local declination, the mapper corrected in the wrong direction. That probably explains some of the incorrect mapping.