rogaining race (Aust Champs) 12:00:00 [4]
shoes: Asics GT-2000
Zara & I picked up the map and thought "wow, this looks steep"; flat-bottomed creeks and flat-topped ridges, with significant ascents & descents in between. At 1: 25 000 and an area of about 10km x 10km, it looked like the total distance to get all 70 controls would be about 70km and therefore we'd be lucky to do about 50km. It was hard to know which controls were best to do vs leaving out, so we tried fo figure what would be simplest at night and which were the best approach directions. There was a clump of significant points around and above a cliffline in the south which looked lucrative, but it was pagoda country up on the plateau and likely to be slow going. The rest of the course didn't seem to have too many serious cliffs, so that was reassuring.
Headed for the NW corner initially; 36, then up the gully to 64 with sweat dripping off our faces, along the ridge to 91, down the spur to 56 with some hesitations on the way. Not for the last time this rogaine, I expected the flat part of the spur/ridge to be the same width as it would be if it took up that much space on a 1: 50 000 map and so thought we couldn't be in the right place because the flat spot wasn't "wide enough". Down to 37 on the Ullumbra Creek and along the creek to 70 then 105. This was beautifully flat and sheoaky, with water in pools through which Zara splashed "like a puppy dog" as I heard another team say. I refrained from this although did wet my hat before the climb up to 82 and 90, during which the cloud came over and the thunder rumbled closer.
A loud thunderclap above startled us on the way to 48 which should have been a short leg down into a 3-way creek junction, but somehow I crossed the main ridge thinking it was a side spur and, despite checking my compass, ended up going south instead of north, on the wrong side of the ridge. Corrected, dropped into the right gully, hustled a long way down to 103 (this area reminded me a lot of the final day of Easter 2014) then a long way up to 63, scrambling on the slippery rocks because it was now raining, although the precipitation lessened to nothing over the next couple of hours. My shoes were very old and very comfortable and completely devoid of grip, which was particularly awkward when it was wet; later in the night I was backsliding down every creek bank.
55, 97, a loong way up to 68 then down to the water drop, which only had 2 x 20L kegs there; that's basically enough for 20 teams only (we'd spent 6 hours covering 15km straight line and drunk 2L water each). I heard that it ran out later which could have been a serious problem for other teams given that there were only 4 water drops on the entire course - including the All Night Cafe, which was another one to run out of water in the middle of the night.
Now we were in flatter country with a nice track & gully network: 92, 87, 101 on the edge of a deep gorge looking out towards the plateau, just on dark and we saw a lot of teams doing an out-&-back on the track to this one. Torches out, 76, 52, up to the ridge (slight hesitation as to where we'd hit the track) and down to 104, across the steep gully to 34 (silly idea; should have gone around on the track). Leaving this we passed Prong & Dave who explained that going up the plateau was a bad idea and that finding the canyon down the east side could be quite dangerous.
Easy track to 94, steep descent to 57 which led us into our first horribly-sustained kangaroo-thorn thicket, from which we backed out and went down the comparatively clearer spur to the south. Steeep climb up to 62 then out to the track from which we approached 88 at the northern base of the plateau (seemed to take forever crossing a junky gully though) and decided that we'd certainly not do the plateau, because it would be nice to get to the ANC before it closed.