Course Description
This years ACT Champs is approximately 30 km northeast of Goulburn in the Tarlo River National Park and surrounding farmland (about 1.5-2 hours drive from either Canberra or Sydney). The area comprises open forest along the Cookbundoon Range and Tarlo River. It is classic spur-gully terrain and ranges in elevation from 600m to 950m, although most of the course is between 600m and 700m. The whole course is virtually free of scrub and undergrowth, and is very fast and enjoyable to move through. The National Park has not seen a bushfire for many years and it is a refreshing change from the burnt areas closer to Canberra.
The weekend of the event is very close to the Winter solstice (June 22), therefore expect a long, cold (but very enjoyable) night. There will be around 14 hours of darkness (sunset is 4.58pm and sunrise 7.09am).
The people who brought this event about
| Coordinator | Setters/Vetters | Admin | General Help | Catering | Control Collection |
| Benita Sommerville | Emma Murray Dan Clark Sue Brown John Brown Stuart Anderson |
Stuart Anderson | Dave Osmond Stuart Anderson John McGrath Rodney McWhirter (landholder) Bart Shneemann Adrian Sheppard |
DEWR Hartley Challenge Team | Gloria Moyano Leanne Aust Sebastian Dunne Adrian Sheppard Trevor Jacobs Paul Veldkamp Dave Osmond Vince Craig |
Full Results of the ACT Rogaining Championships Rogaine held on 25/06/2005 at Tarlo River area
8hr event results Overall Category/Age Place MO MV MS XO XV XS WO WV WS J F Score Time In Team Names 1 - - - 1 - - - - - - - 1310 753 50 Susan Sprague, Selina Stoute, Shane Russell 2 1 - - - - - - - - - - 1270 728 14 Sebastien Dunne, Bart Schneemann 3 2 - - - - - - - - - - 1050 803 17 Ian Warren, Peter Hemphill, Damien Halliday 4 - - - 2 - - - - - - - 1000 743 29 Marta Cieslinski, Andrew Scott 5 3 - - - - - - - - - - 1000 756 77 Mark Liddle, Mathew Wilk 6 4 - - - - - - - - - - 930 748 52 Geoff Moon, Robert McManus 7 5 - - - - - - - - - - 790 701 55 Scott Hamilton, Tom West, Peter Figar 8 6 - - - - - - - - - - 790 748 62 Dan Heldon, James Dwyer 9 7 - - - - - - - - - - 780 535 66 Michael Hutchinson, Henry Hutchinson, David Hutchinson 10 8 1 - - - - - - - - - 780 653 38 Andrew Chalklen, Derek Synnott 11 - - - 3 - - - - - - - 780 759 35 Duncan Macaulay, Amanda Bates 12 9 2 1 - - - - - - - - 770 730 24 David Clark, Trevor Lawrence 13 - - - 4 - - - - - - - 740 730 48 Emma Kirby, Mac Kirby 14 - - - 5 - - - - - - - 700 752 10 Mark Von Huben, Amy Von Huben 15 - - - - - - 1 - - - - 690 754 25 Leanne King, Megan McCann 16 10 3 - - - - - - - - - 670 746 51 Tony Edwards, Stewart Murray 17 - - - 6 - - - - - - - 660 750 28 Philip Keaton, Debbie Saunders 18 - - - 7 1 - - - - - - 660 809 63 Michelle Greenwood, Jeremy Allen 19 - - - - - - 2 - - - - 590 752 34 Lorna Barr, Minh Huynh, Shoko Okada 20 - - - 8 2 - - - - - - 580 747 23 Ian Almond, Bronwyn Wilson, Rod Doyle 21 - - - 9 - - - - - - - 530 829 58 Rob Burrell, Penny Burrell, Nick Simpson, Brad Walters 22 - - - 10 - - - - - - - 510 727 71 Rodney McWhirter, Lori McWhirter 23 11 4 - - - - - - - - - 490 713 2 Steve Graham, Brian Allsop 24 12 - - - - - - - - - - 490 718 37 Michael Bortz, Andre Stoffel, Norman Oelkers, Robert Fischer 25 - - - 11 - - - - - - - 450 647 16 Bronwyn Davis, Liam Stewart 26 - - - 12 - - - - - - - 350 747 72 Elizabeth St.George, Vongsa Sulivong 27 - - - 13 - - - - - - 1 350 808 69 Brian Evans, Dane Evans, Rhys Evans, Ruth Evans 28 - - - 14 - - - - - - - 290 811 75 Peter Black, Taree Brearley 29 13 5 - - - - - - - - - 180 526 4 John Cole, David Chambers Late 857 18 Dale McCormack, Jason Ockerby Late 925 67 Paul Floro, Paul Hodges W/D 753 54 Matt Koerber, Shane Russell 24hr event results Overall Category/Age Place MO MV MS XO XV XS WO WV WS J F Score Time In Team Names 1 - - - 1 - - - - - - - 2970 2131 41 Julie Quinn, Karl Strode-Penny 2 1 - - - - - - - - - - 2970 2337 56 Keith Conley, Adrian Keough 3 2 - - - - - - - - - - 2830 2349 70 Patrick Mickan, Peter Thomas 4 3 1 - - - - - - - - - 2490 2331 11 Glenn Bridgart, David Jones 5 - - - 2 1 - - - - - - 2430 2326 21 Jean Douglass, Ron Simpson 6 4 - - - - - - - - - - 2120 2339 74 Steve Halpin, Andrew Black 7 5 2 - - - - - - - - - 2050 2338 49 Don McLean, Michael Challen 8 - - - 3 2 - - - - - - 1870 2337 13 Nihal Danis, Richard Sage, Sue Clarke 9 6 - - - - - - - - - - 1860 2337 32 Kelvin Proctor, Adrian Smith 10 - - - 4 - - - - - - - 1840 2310 7 David Kricker, Anna Kricker 11 7 3 - - - - - - - - - 1790 2330 40 Brett Davis, Colin Taylor 12 8 - - - - - - - - - - 1720 2344 8 Peter Liston, Bill Keating 13 - - - 5 - - - - - - - 1720 2353 68 Leone Jansen, Peter Hairsine 14 - - - 6 - - - - - - - 1630 2328 26 Natalie Hatherly, Chris Hatherly 15 9 - - - - - - - - - - 1620 2230 20 Greg Knight, Paul Knight 16 - - - 7 3 - - - - - - 1540 2354 42 Margaret Harrap, Michael Harrap 17 10 - - - - - - - - - - 1470 2344 43 Ian Wright, Sean Greenhill 18 - - - 8 4 - - - - - - 1460 2352 1 David Couche, Michelle Soar 19 11 4 - - - - - - - - - 1370 1753 5 Cliff Harris, Mal Winnley 20 12 - - - - - - - - - - 1300 2350 44 Garth Coghlan, Joshua Bobruk, Chris Geelan, Michael Peoples 21 - - - - - - 1 - - - - 1270 2312 45 Kim Stokeld, Freya Scollay 22 13 - - - - - - - - - - 1250 2302 33 Juan Carlos Popelka, Trevor Fairhurst 23 14 - - - - - - - - - - 1180 2230 22 Dominic Sullivan, Paul Fahey 24 - - - - - - 2 - - - - 1170 2353 36 Lydia Knuefing, Christine Henry 25 15 - - - - - - - - - - 1160 2315 27 Yale Carden, Sean Cormack 26 - - - 9 5 - - - - - - 1120 2353 73 Mike Hotchkis, Debbie Hotchkis 27 - - - - - - 3 1 1 - - 1110 2347 9 Pat Miethke, Jenny Horsfield 28 - - - 10 - - - - - - - 1090 1830 15 Rebecca Davies, Gavin Lyon 29 - - - 11 - - - - - - - 1060 2354 39 Luke Bulkeley, Sharon Losik, Shaun Lendrum 30 - - - 12 6 - - - - - - 620 2350 6 Gordon McKeown, Roslyn Hiscox 31 - - - 13 - - - - - - - 460 802 31 Simon Smalley, Cathy Boyle, Sonja Schmid 32 - - - 14 - - - - - - - 370 2239 64 Nerida Reilly, Daniel Harman W/D 57 Nicki Munro, David Wilson W/D 945 19 Alison Clegg, Julie Taylor
How it can all go so Wrong
ACT Rogaining Championships, 25th Jun 2005
Pat Miethke, posted on 21st Jul 2005
We planned a route to collect 2000 points if we covered the same distance we did in the ACT Champs last year and set off, ignoring the detail that the country was all spur-gully eucalypt forest, all up and down and rocky underfoot, no open grassy flats, no bright moonlight..... Noon start, and for the first 5 hours everything went like clockwork, we were on track for our best-ever rogaine result. Then we crossed the Tarlo River on a slippery fallen log and climbed a big high ridge and found control 67 just as it got totally dark at 5.15 pm. We realised with a sinking feeling that we should not be attempting the 2 km of broken ground to control 91 in the dark. Compass and pace-count to the saddle; it seems too far, but there's only one saddle and this is it; over to the ridge beyond the first knoll; there's no second knoll; back and forth; only one knoll?; we push on anyway in a general north direction and down to the east-west creek and all seems fine. Its totally black, no moon, soft drizzle, our feeble little headlights just illuminate around our feet. We cannot see the landforms around us. Whoops! step back! that contour line is a dry waterfall! This is where the creek turns to the north. Let's take a safety bearing NE out to the open ground and eventually a track. Oops! another huge gully, wish we could see more than 10 feet! We kept getting pushed off our bearing by large black drops, and took a ridge heading more SE than the E we wanted. This is all wrong. Let's head east. We dropped down a ridge which got more and more vertical, until suddenly I saw Jenny below me clinging on by her fingertips and only a black void below her. She clambered back and we sat on a steep slope while I battled with changing the batteries in my headlight which has chosen right now to die, and we contemplated the possibility of a serious injury while being totally lost, and the looming prospect of having to light a fire and sit out the night in the drizzle. Eventually we moved further along the slope and found a spot to clamber down the cliff and came out on what looked like the Tarlo River. Now we guessed where we were, and there should be a track some 600 m further downstream. The wet river rocks were like a skating rink and we took several heavy falls and clambered awkwardly along the bank around big pools. Slow going. We spotted two headlights up ahead which never came closer. Finally we reached Julie Quinn and the track end. It was 8.30 pm and we had spent 3 hours lost. We've lost controls before, but never ourselves. Sobering experience. Now we were so far off our planned route and so demoralised that all we could do was to follow the track back to the Hash House, with only a 20 and a 40 pt controls to pick up, we'd already got the others in this region. Back at 11.15 pm. The last six hours for 60 pts. That's blown it, completely. We waited until it got light next morning, then spent 5 hours in misty drizzle, trying to salvage what we could. Total 1,110 points, for a huge amount of effort. As the only entrants, we won the WS trophy, but we didn't deserve to. We reconstruct our route in nice bright daylight with a cup of coffee, and its all so obvious. We were correct when we identified the dry waterfall as a particular contour line, but we had lost confidence and were tired. The Tarlo River does a very sharp hairpin bend just to the east of this spot and in avoiding a deep gully we unknowingly moved SE on to the S side of the S arm, and not the N side of the N arm as we thought we were. From then on we were history, because the canyon of the Tarlo River lay between us and our safety bearing. Every rogaine has its own character and particular memories, often very vivid ones. This episode fits that. It was a learning experience, and if we'd had to sit it out until morning then we were well enough equipped to do so. Next year, we'll be back!
Tarlo River in the Rain
ACT Rogaining Championships, 25th Jun 2005
Keith Conley, posted on 21st Jul 2005
Rogaining Championships are unique amongst the ever-increasing array of adventure-based endurance events on offer in Australia. I reckon they present one of the toughest and most challenging physical and mental tests anyone can undertake in amateur sport. Organised from a core group of high-level competitors who know what they�re doing and who set courses in terrain that couldn�t be improved for the purpose, we are truly lucky to have the opportunity each year to bust a gut and a brain cell or two for our very modest sport. This year�s event did not disappoint. My rogaine partner of all of five minutes, Adrian Keough, had been given the real ring-around in the week leading up to the event. A stupid training accident the Friday before had left my ankle with a black golf ball lump threatening a late scratching from the event. Thanks to excellent work from Kathy Hogg my physio, it looked like I�d be OK, however by Wed the knee gave way too, so then it looked unlikely again. Kathy gave strict instructions not to run. But by Friday morning all seemed well, did a terrain run on Black Mtn at lunch to make sure, and as I couldn�t find a late replacement for the very patient Adrian I took the plunge � into a 24 hr rogaine with a dodgy knee. It could have all gone so horribly wrong. Luckily, Roger, Gail and Neil, the rogaining gods, must have been looking after me because it all came good. I should at this point shine a spotlight on Adrian. What a future star we have for rogaining in the ACT (what is it with Adrians?). Formerly in the artillery division of the army he has the uncanny ability to measure distance. I�d ask �how far to the next control Adrian?� and he�d answer �272 metres�. I�d say �are you sure about that?� thinking this joker was having me on and in all seriousness he would say �yes�. He�d then give me the estimated time left to find that gully that we were looking for entering from the right of the skanky creek we were struggling through. �Yep, 7 minutes and we should be there� he�d say as if we were on manoeuvres. And he was always right. How good is that, I ask you? You don�t want to play battleships with this bloke. The course itself was a beauty. The misty rain that set in following a prolonged drought gave a unique set of conditions to contend with. Everyone would have enjoyed the icky orange ooziness when you gripped a jelly tree? The gullys were slippery and treacherous as if margarine had been spread over everything. And the weather couldn�t make up its mind. The raincoats were on and off all night. Adrian and I quickly discovered that we had a favourite side of the river � East was a kind and gentle place where hobbits might make a home, the West was devil country fit apparently only for a National Park. Our route choice had us cross the �river� six times. Mostly this was nothing worse than a steep climb in and out of a rocky bottom, but for one particular crossing we had tantalisingly do-able rock faces to climb in either direction. Picking what we thought was a safe section we quickly found ourselves in a fairly uncomfortable position, probably best described as a traverse of what I hoped was a very old landslip. I managed to coax Adrian to the top of the climb with promises of a flat nirvana just a few meters past his next handhold. On arrival at the top Adrian dubbed them the Cliffs of Terror. We were both quietly relieved that the climb was behind us as we shuffled to the next control. We enjoyed all sections of the course and there was good variety of terrain. The more open section in the north-west of the map was welcome after the heavy going of the steep and rocky west. The ANC was perfectly placed for a smash and grab at 5am for coffee and soup and that left the easier eastern section to do for the last six hours. Our route choice sort of zigzagged a lot creating the image of a crazy dancing afro-haired dude on our flight plan, so we named him Tarlo. In the cloud and rain, the only thing we missed were the promised views. In such circumstances, the Dolphin torch again proved its rogaining credentials and handled all the tough stuff. Even though two teams cleared the course, I think it was an excellent championship-standard layout. The points were fairly distributed, there were no misplaced controls, and water drops were in all the right places. My only criticism would be that the map did not include all the major gullies, but I think that sort of fuzziness adds to the allure of the sport and only really gets up the noses of some of the fussier orienteering types. Rogainers are good at muddling through on minimal or incomplete information. Long may it remain so. Thanks to the organisers and landholders for a great weekend. It is an annual highlight of the sporting calendar. And congratulations to Julie and Karl on a terrific win. I can�t understand why the ACT Rogaining Champs isn�t up there with the Melbourne Cup and State of Origin in Australian sporting recognition. Tip top event. Thanks most of all to Adrian for a great and almost flawless run. You have shown me the true value of chicken twisties, mars bars and spare socks!