Stephen & John Watt on the trail.

A frantic call to National Parks reassured us that our event could go ahead - the sign planted in the middle of the track stating that the park was closed was a day early and nobody would be shooting at us from a helicopter!

The weather was near perfect after the previous day's rain, and it was great to see a mixture of new & familiar faces taking up the challenge in a physically demanding area.

If it wasn't for Kasimir Gregory showing us what was possible (68:24 on the Hard 1 course) there might have been mutterings about the courses being a bit long - certainly the resurgence of the scrub and the luxuriant grass growth since the breaking of the drought made conditions tougher than expected. Orienteering newcomer Jock Mitchell surprised us with a very strong run for 2nd place in Hard 1 - hope to see you at future events Jock!

Apologies to Don Cooper and others who had trouble getting to the controls among the rocks in the river bed - the water was higher after the rain, and I couldn't get out there and back with dry shoes either!

Special mention should be made of the 3 junior orienteers (Abbigail (4), Alister (5) and John (7)) who went out on the extended Easy course (designed for young people twice their age) and, with a little help from their dads, completed the course and came back still full of enthusiasm - hope to see all of them at future events!

My thanks to Don Barker, Nathan Jeffery, Maurice Anker, Felix and Veronica Burkhard, and anyone else I've forgotten, who helped with bringing in the flags and general pack up on the day - everything was collected before sunset, and (just as it should be) there is no sign that we were ever even there!

Alec Watt