rogaining (hermit-hunting) 1:20:00 [3]
72 teams were entered in the rogaine, and 73 teams started! I have never heard of an event without a single no-show team. We had to get extra maps printed at the last minute, and there were lots of novice/family teams so I was kept busy giving advice AKA "Tips & Tricks for navigating in mallee (we had copies of Twigham and Merridee O maps on display).
After 180 people started, most of them heading for the 80 pointer 1.5km N of the HH (commonest question of the morning: "why is that one worth 80 points? Is there some trick to it?") I sat down with the Admin people to make the team changes and discovered that the teams had been entered in the scoring database so that 6hr was down as 12hr and vice versa. Oh whoops...
Late afternoon I went for a run over the hills to Wittow spring - a soak in the creek where water is trickling and some reeds are growing - and then back through a gap in the hills where a line of rocks on the ridgeline does a pretty good impression of a stegosaurus. I was fairly exhausted and had to stop to catch my breath at every control, so had been out longer than I intended (wanting to be back well before 6hr finish) and really needed to pee...then I saw a long-drop dunny in the middle of nowhere. It was like a mirage! Turned around and there was a humpy, a caravan, a 4WD and an old fellow who, when I asked "How long have you been here?" said "Since 1967"!
Don't think he's actually out there all the time, but he had a pretty decent setup with a camp oven, boiler, Hills hoist and even a patch of garden. I stopped to chat because I was so curious (figuring I could run faster than him if necessary - he turned out to be 87) but had to decline a cup of tea so I could get back to the HH before dark. Along the main road the Thomases (landowners) passed me and offered a lift. I jumped in and said "I've just met your squatter!" and they said "Oh goodness, we forgot to tell you about him" but at least they had told him about the rogainers coming through, not that he'd seen any (and he was too deaf to hear anyone anyway).
6hr had a few teams late back, but we got the results processed okay and then took a while to work out the programme for printing the certificates. Didn't matter, everyone was enjoying a feed. After 8pm George & I went out to do a safety loop in one direction and Richard went the other; both loops took a couple of hours but hardly saw any teams because the water drops were on the perimeter of the course. Managed to stay awake until the midnight finish to read out the 12hr results - the top 3 teams cracked 2000 (out of a possible 2750; we knew the course wasn't clean-uppable but wanted to allow plenty of route choice options because of its T-shape). And then the caterers went home, everyone else went to bed, and Zara & I cleared up and brought everything undercover because of the predicted rain, so we got to bed about 2am.