Your reactions, trials, tribulations... Reverse order, earliest ones at the bottom.
Paul Cummack, Wellington:
Thanks for a very enjoyable day on Saturday with the City Safari.
Myself and the kids thought it was great. I enjoyed the questions.
It was nice seeing parts of the city I have never been to, country side roads
in Wainui and TePuni's grave etc etc. The kids thought the bus trips and train
trips were cool.
Emma had to do a talk for the school on a news item. She picked the "City Safari"
And discussed the organisation, the questions, and the people who won.
She got a good mark too. Its amazing how kids can excell at school when
they really enjoy something.
Kathy Farquhar, Auckland:
Congratulations to you for the whole event, I
was very impressed and shall write very positively about it all for
Harbour Sport and the North West (orienteering club) committee. I certainly can't see why it
wouldn't work up here very well once the right map is organised and that
is an opportunity for you/someone else??
Jo Forbes, Wellington:
Once again Mike awesome event - Rob and I certainly can't wait until you
do one in the Wellington city and surrounding suburbs heaps of scope
there we feel - particularly as it is almost all mapped.
Liam Drew, Karori:
A couple from us - Barry sensibly stored his bus pass in the zipped pocket
on his brand new iRule Xtremo Heat, and then found that he couldn't open the
zip, so had to rip the pocket to get it out.
You said only one bus was late last year, but you didn't mention them being
early - we came up with a perfectly timed plan to jump off 170 at the bottom
of Wainui hill, go get ?29? The homestay place, and then get on 165 on the
parkway loop out to 81, except it was 2 minutes early, and went past the end
of the road as we were heading down to the bus stop!
Oh, and so much for 90 being difficult to find, that was where we saw the
most teams all day - we must have seen at least 6 teams when we went down
to the point and back up.
Nicole Ranger, Upper Hutt:
...just wanted to send you a note to say 'thank you very much' for the wonderful event!
You did an excellent job, it was well organised, good value, fun and friendly.
Myself and Tony really enjoyed ourselves and hope to participate in future events.
Mike Sheridan, Eastbourne:
Thanks for a superb event on Saturday.
Firstly you should record our points as nil - we were more than 30 minutes
late back (plus we got back by car!) Sprinting down the road at York Bay we
saw the bus speed past - less than 100m away....The next bus to Queensgate
was another hour...and to run back would have had us more than 30 mins late
anyway - so we caught a bus south to my place picked up a car and drove
back! I reckon we went from first to last on the rogaine by being 20 seconds too
slow!
The control placement was great - A good mix of ribbons and clues. Yes I
reckon you could have had more controls in the valley. Would be interested
in the six hours winning route. How many people went across to the Western
Hills? The start finish area was surprisingly good - and the bus added a dimension
there.
The 15 min prologue is a great concept - But the time of day for the three
hour was far too busy. It is too dangerous with all that traffic- cars and
pedestrians! I guess it was a lot quieter for the start of the six hour.
Shane Ross, Whitemans Valley:
Michael, just wanted to say thanks again for the City Safari event.
We (Generation Gap) had a great time. So much so that Jill’s parents
(who were the first generation in our team) are signing up to do the
Greytown Rogaine... Can you please pass on our sincere thanks to the StageCoach team.
We did the Mangauraki loop, and did well at it (6th overall I believe)
and we have nothing but praise for the drivers on that section. Helpful,
courteous, lots of advice, good humour and encouragement. Even my 12 year
old son commented on how great the bus service was. Excellent event and an
excellent way to promote public transport.
Joy Lewis, Lower Hutt:
Thank you for putting on yet another fantastic City Safari. It was even
better than last year and we thought that was pretty awesome. The
organisation was most impressive, also being able to chose a route from such
a large area of the Hutt, fun questions and of course the pizza and hot dogs
at the end...
We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are busy working out ways to improve our
performance for next year. Joy's team will not be going up the firebreak at
43 again.Did make us wonder how challenging an 80 point station would be.
John's team are talking about training for the 6 hour event next year.
Janet Wilson, Ashhurst:
Well done getting the results out so quickly - also thanks for all the
organising, we had a great time.
Gordon Leary, Whitemans Valley:
I found a pedometer near control number 81 in Wainuiomata yesterday and,
at the finish, forgot to ask if anyone had dropped one. If you have any
enquiries from someone who's lost one give them our phone number.
Thanks for a great event, it was fun taking part.
Pat van Berkel, Pinehaven:
Thanks for such a great day. Karen enjoyed it too. All helped by the
perfect weather... Our story is that we had got to 82 with about 30 minutes before the bus at
Days Bay, and foolishly thought we would go to 62 and 28 instead of a simple
amble down to 37 and out at York Bay. I couldn't read the map clearly in
the gloom of the forest and failed to spot that the route along the ridge
was somewhat bumpy. Karen was tiring now, and each bit of uphill was a real
effort. She gamely jogged the downhill bits. When we go to the junction
straight down to 28, we had only 15 minutes left and reluctantly abandoned
62. The sign said 45 minutes to the bottom. We jogged down and did it in 15
minutes - just in time for the bus.
Chaucey Ellis, Lower Hutt:
..Thanks for organising such an awesome day of activities yesterday. We had a
great time and are really looking forward to next year. We were pleased to
do so well considering that we are not very fit, but I guess we knew our
limitations and worked hard on the strategy side of it...
The prologue was an excellent start, it was nice to know we had some points
before starting out on the travelling. As you mentioned in your email, yes,
it would have been good to have a couple of controls close to the
start/finish. We were happily suprised by the bbq and pizzas at the end,
thank you.
Daniel Barnfield, Christchurch:
..thanks for an awesome time, I really enjoyed it.
Especially the sprint event at the start was pretty fun, although it took me
nearly 4 controls to fingure out that there was questions about the
controls. When I got to the first control it had a ribbon and then the
second control I got to was a seat and I couldn't figure out where the damn
ribbon was on the seat and then someone behind me shouted green and then I
thought that we had to write down the colour of everything so when I got to
the memorial I wrote down grey, but then on the way to the next control I
finally read the back of the map and realised that there were specific
questions about each control !
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