Murrays High on Heights of Winter

Heights of Winter 12hr Rogaine 22 June 02

Keith and Andrea Murray triumphed over a 200+ strong field in the Heights of Winter rogaine last weekend in North Canterbury. Some put the victory down to high tech training (using an altitude chamber) while other reasons may have been their fitness, navigational ability and excellent course management on what was a gruelling yet tempting map. On a clear day over 40 teams failed to make the 12 hour deadline.

The event started and finished in Waikari, heading to the south through limestone country and into the Waipara catchment. Route choice problems were posed by a number a parallel ridges disecting the map. Planner Piers McLaren suggested that the event would be won with only 3/4 of the controls, he was proved correct.

Other orienteers also to the fore included Alistair Cory Wright, Pat Bodger, Ray Pratt and Chris Forne. Although Chris forgot to hand his card in and was presumably disqualified! The highly fancied team of Aaron Prince, John Howard and Jamie Stewart tried to go too far.

The event was a great advertisement for rogaining and with the number of fit looking adventurous people present will only be beneficial for other navigation sports.

This story was written by Jamie Stewart for the Maptalk website, which is a newspaper-style website for map-sports in New Zealand. It was installed here on 27 June 02. Full results were affected by a control in the wrong place, but are expected to appear on the NZRA website.