This was our second go at the Aussie champs, the first attempt ended in a DNF in Tasmania. My son Robbie made up the team for the Rogaine and Janette my wife came too and played the important role of navigating from Melbourne to Hawker in South Australia via Adelaide and back again. This she did very well but she did become pretty cranky when it was her turn to drive and Robbie & I did not take this role as seriously as she did. We arrived in Hawker the Thursday before the event and had a day to reflect on the event and have a look around. Tried Kangaroo meat and ate a large fillet steak for tea and with a good nights sleep we were ready to go.
The event was at Holowilena, a station an hour’s drive east of Hawker mainly on dirt road. The map was 1:50,000 with contours of 10 metres and only 48 controls, which made the distance between them probably well over 2 km on average. The country varied from rugged hills, rocky under foot and covered with porcupine bush (the jury is out on whether this is worse than matagouri) (picture), to rolling hills lightly covered with trees and flatter open country (picture).
We planned a route to take us to the north western corner and then across the rugged hills at the top, leaving the flatter country to the south and the more rolling to the southwest to the end. Our aim was to beat the team from Christchurch (Pete Squires, Bill & Ann Kennedy) also known as the Oldies. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, as anyone who has seen then in action would be aware.
At the start we found that we were following the same course as the Oldies. Robbie & I charged off only to find them punching the first control (32) before us, and the same at the second (42)! We managed to get to the third (95) before them but only just. The last we saw of them until the next morning was at fifth control (20) when we went left and they went right and we must have passed in the night across the top of the map.
Robbie & I then got into trouble overestimating the distance we had come (63), sorted this out (71 & 84), passed several teams at a water stop (W4) and headed into the Black Range Hills. Darkness arrived at 6:00pm and we still had 6 controls in the rugged hills to get (74, 94, 81, 91, 75 & 61). As we arrived at 61 at 11:30pm Robbie made the comment “we are pretty good at this” and then it went so very wrong. Couldn’t find the next one (47), didn’t really know where we were, tried for another (46) and had no luck, had to give up on these two and try to relocate to a road. It was 2:10am when we finally got to the road and a control (45).
We were faced with fairly flat country from then and the only way I could see us finding the controls (Robbie wasn’t much help at that stage) was to walk in a straight line between them using our compass. By God it worked - 48, 49, 86, 54, 35, 36 & 55 all came easily in the dark, and by then even Robbie was impressed.
Morning arrived about now, and so did our foes at the water stop (W2). The Oldies arrived from the direction we were heading looking pretty good which spurred Robbie into action for one last loop to finish (87, 64, 57, 58, 51, 43, 31 & 38). Failure to unfold the map and see a control (40) within easy reach for the 50 odd minutes we had spare was disappointing at the end.
Our final score of 2010 was good enough for 12th overall and Robbie & I were well satisfied that we had completed our best 24 Hour to date, even with going AWOL for a couple of hours. For the record we did beat the Oldies’ 1860 points (16th overall and first Mixed Supervets). Irene Pow & Marcus King (1650 points for 26th overall) and Henry Beex, Denis Litt & Mark Struthers (1370 points for 44th overall) were the other New Zealand teams. 147 teams started the event. Full results including control visit analysis and pictures, are on the South Australia Rogaine website.
The event was set to a very high standard, which is normal for the Aussie Champs, and with cheap airfares Robbie & I are certainly planning for a trip to Queensland next year.
This page written by Alan Holdaway, and installed on 13 July 04.
