The 6-hour category was by far the most popular at Auckland's first rogaine on Saturday. It was won by the NZ Army team of Jason Markham and Cathal Dickens. Markham was third placegetter in the last world rogaine champs and is also in the national orienteering squad. Ramesh Swamy and Mark Anderson from Taranaki were second, while the mixed veteran pair of Geoff and Lisa Mead (Auckland) were an incredible third.
There were only two teams in the 12-hour category, and they shared the honours. Those of you who know that ties are split by reference to finish time will smell a rat: one of the teams was affected by a misplaced control circle and with their points close to the other team they were given the difference. The teams were Penny Webster and Jim Davidson, and Tony Gazley and Chris Tait.
All other aspects of the event were superb, including the delicious country meal served by the locals in the district hall. But it was the terrain that really impressed. A patternless series of ridges and valleys of modest total height; and everywhere there were limestone cliffs and boulders and sometimes even mazes. Mostly farmland with a bit of passable bush and pine plantation, and some delightful areas of scattered pines as in a park. Apparently this terrain goes on like this for miles!
Written by Michael Wood and installed on 26 Mar 01. So much for a participant's view, now here's a message from the organisers, added 30 Mar 01:
Hi All,
Thanks for making the Wairamarama Rogaine a most memorable event. We trust that you all enjoyed the day and perhaps learnt a thing or two about navigation/route choice/your partner/yourself along the way.
Please find a list of confirmed results. Please pass these results on to any other competitors who you know, as not every team provided an email address. We are taking the liberty of also copying these results to other rogainers in the North Island who did not compete at Wairamarama, and to various NZOF officials and Newsletter editors, for their information.
As announced on the night, top score in the six hour event was achieved by the NZ Army team of Jason Markham and Cathal Dickens with 1420 points. Interestingly the area used for the rogaine is the cross-country training base for the NZ SAS, so maybe these guys knew something that we others didn't! We hope to send around a scanned version of the map with the NZ Army's course on it for your perusal in the near future. (And we are still arranging for the lump of Wairamarama limestone to be fastposted to Jason and Cathal as a momento.)
Also as noted on Saturday, the two 12-hour teams tied with 2070 points apiece, a magnificent effort from four very experienced outdoors people.
We unreservedly apologise to the 12-hour teams for the incorrect control marking of #92, and to the 6-hour teams who could not locate #95. The mystery behind #95 has been solved in that it turns out that the whole fence (on one fencepost of which the code for #95 was marked) was removed by a farmer a couple of weeks before the rogaine!! Which goes to prove that gremlins can sneak into even the best laid plans!
There were many other noteworthy performances in the rogaine (not the least from the weather!), but then every teams' performance is noteworthy for reasons known to yourselves.
We enjoyed staging the Wairamarama Rogaine and wish to again acknowledge the incredible support of the Wairamarama farming community for making such the event possible. Competitors may contact the key landowner Richard Gemmel at gemmel.family@xtra.co.nz to express your personal appreciation.
See you in the Wairarapa on 19th May, or maybe Marlborough on 1-2 December.