Office Hours 2011 'St. James' Sunday 4th December Organiser's Reflections

 

Though the large scale of landscape features in the high country always makes it a tough proposition to set a good navigational challenge, the valleys and basins in the Clarence offer a complex set of route choices, and we thought this could be a good setting for a rogaine. We appreciate the favourable feedback from teams which has reinforced our view. After a harrowing weather forecast we were blessed with mild temperature and winds from the north-west, with showers only setting in for the last hour. For seven hours 48 teams (115 people) worked their way around their chosen share of the 40 check points.

Nathan Faavae and Chris Forne were clear winners on 1620 points (of 1710), ahead of Angus Jennings and Nick Ross on 1390. First women were Jodie Faavae and Wendy Van der Berg 1030, (a family affair for the Faavaes!) Emma and Guy de Lacey were the first mixed team on 1220 and the top junior team of Joel Smith, Elisha Nuttall, Alastair McDowell came in strongly with 1200.

We regret getting CP 38 wrong, having changed the location in the field at an advanced stage of planning then failing to update the description to match! We also concede an error in #72, which as several teams have pointed out, was in fact located about 100m further downstream than shown on the map. Though many teams eventually found these check points anyway, they suffered a penalty of extra searching time. We have not adjusted any event results for these errors. Those teams adversely affected may make their own informal adjustments for their own satisfaction.

Another attraction of coming to this area was to introduce teams to a landscape that will progressively become well-known as the end point of the St James Cycle Trail – here we were in on the ground floor, so to speak. It’s an area of open mountain land with vast and majestic basin wetlands. No doubt some folk had had enough of soggy feet and biting matagouri by day’s end. Even some of the Hanmer locals in the event say they were led to features, such as a nice waterfall, they never knew existed.

Newcomer co-organisers Chrys Horn and Linda Lilburne brought their own flair to the event. We planned the course layout using air photos more intensively than I have done before, and Linda prepared the map in a GIS, rather than the usual OCAD orienteering software. With support, Chrys mastered Navlight from a standing start. Both are active rogainers, and their willingness to expand our organisational capacity in such versatile ways is marvellous. Bill Kennedy provided the profiling and registration glue that bound us all together into an event. I also thank other Hunters for their active roles placing check points and on the day; Hanmer Springs Lions for catering, and SAR for being present in case we needed first aid or recovery support; and DoC staff. As I write this we have several good prospects to collect check points – the forgotten task – through this week. Thank you all.

Grant Hunter