Two reports in one as they are flying in faster than webmaster can keep up (with a Christmas house full of small children!)
Christmas Classic, day 1
Falnash State Forest was the venue for the first day of the Christmas Classic near Lithgow in the Blue Mountains National Park.
The forest is made up of uniformly aged eucalyptus, some scattered conifers and many termite mounds on the sloping bank of a creek.
The map was at an old school scale of 1:15000 but still looked quite empty. Courses were middle distance but not middle intensity, so the course for M65 was 3.3 km with only 7 controls.
It took our reporter 32 minutes. Four of his 7 controls were termite mounds. One leg had route choice. The rest were compass and pacing legs. Our reporter isn’t sure if his Northern Europe compass works as well down under.
The forest was runnable if you were strong, fit and agile. If you weren’t it was run-trip-jump stumble-able. Or bounce-able if you are a kangaroo of which he saw three, but no snakes, no spiders or wombats.
Hoping the festive season is going well for everyone. Further exciting updates tomorrow.
Day 2
An early start for this day; we had to turn up between 0800 and 0930.
The assembly area was in the grounds of a power station which was reminiscent of Buildwas but significantly bigger. Despite the looming industry the site seemed to have a lot of wildlife with many birds, most making strange noises, and plenty of kangaroos, one of which bounced through the assembly area at speed. The locals seemed unconcerned and bent slightly out of the way. Visitors were more animated and dived for cover.
In the forest there was a network of paths which were generally quite visible when you found them. Contour features were subtle but well mapped.
My course required good compass work to stay on line and had some route choice as well. The runnable was rough underfoot, with many branches and fallen trees in knee high grass,so you had to take care not to trip over or to poke out your eye. And we had to watch out for snakes.
Yesterday I helped a small child, today a damsel in distress who was very lost. I had a reasonably clean run making 10 minutes a km which was OK. My travelling companion completed her course without a compass.
Next we go to Baal Bone for some long courses. Watch out for tomorrow’s report.
