orienteering (Goolwa MTBO) 1:55:00 [3]
Went down to Goolwa to ride Kay's really fun score event which started on the lakeside south of town and took in most of the suburbs - plus Hindmarsh Island if you were feeling brave or foolish, which I wasn't. Actually, I take that back - I was very foolish because I didn't realise there were control descriptions; had folded them under on my map board. And so when I got to where the mystery control 'K' was, I knew that it was at Kay's dad's house, but couldn't see a control in the front garden and didn't realise that I had to go around the back :( So I didn't get the points for that one.
But I got all the others on the 1:10 000 map fairly easily - even rode some (very gentle) singletrack for the first time ever - and then turned over to the larger area of the town tourist map, and without descriptions, struggled quite a lot in the control circles. I rode into the horse yards and did a puzzled lap of the stables and then a guy there said "I think you're looking for the wetlands next door".Apparently I wasn't the only one! And I did 2 laps of the BMX track looking for the control which was exactly on the opposite side of the tree which I rode within 5m of, twice...so I lost about 10 min all up and ran out of time to get a couple more controls on the north side of Goolwa and headed back along the lakefront. The one at the houseboat marina really stumped me, and in turning over my map from the large area to the 1:10 000 area for the last couple of controls, I finally discovered the descriptions - and that the control was actually on a houseboat!
Had less than 10 min to spare from there but hurried along the lakefront into a headwind and got in with 2 min up my sleeve. Kay laughed at me for not finding her beautifully detailed descriptions (I should have realised that this was more like a rogaine than an MTBO event) and then told me where I had to pick up the controls that I was about to put out in Victor Harbor. Yep, from her dad's house! I put out a dozen controls (by car, thinking I was glad not to be riding up some of those hills) in the Encounter Bay/Bluff side of Victor and when I got home after 10pm, having had dinner with Kay before driving home, George looked at the map and showed me the site where he had broken his leg a couple of years ago.