By Meredith Norman, one half of the winning team
Camilo and I usually find ourselves competing against each other in rogaines, but this time we decided to team up for the four-hour event in Strathalbyn, one of our few opportunities to race together this year. I had previously visited Strathalbyn a few times; the most memorable was for breakfast in the Town centre with Joe Milne and Josie Smernik as we walked 53kms from Highland Valley to Goolwa.
I was looking forward to this rogaine particularly after bumping into the enthusiastic course setter Guy Schubert, a few weeks earlier at orienteering. He was eagerly enticing us to enter the event. I briefly skimmed the entry list prior to the rogaine and saw there would be many fast teams – I knew we’d have our work cut out for us!
In my last rogaine with Camilo, I accidentally packed two left shoes (silly I know) so I was meticulous when packing the rogaine gear for this event. Given the warm weather, I packed plenty of water, electrolytes, a filling lunch and a left and right shoe!
We left Adelaide around 11:30am arriving at the rogaine hash-house around 12:45pm. Admin check in and map pick up was efficient and fast thanks to the well organised admin team. Camilo and I found a nice shady spot and began to plan.
The first stage in our planning was marking little crosses on all of the impassable routes such as between control 56 and 66. We also studied all the out of bounds rules making sure we understood what was passable and impassable. We then mocked up a few different route options for the cluster of controls just north of the hash house as this seemed the most convoluted. Given the map scale and size, and lack of contours, I knew it could be possible to get the majority of controls, however, given my lack of long runs recently, I wasn’t too sure how I’d hold up. The controls in the north eastern corner seemed fairly intuitive to link up. We tried linking control 58 into our route but this control just wouldn’t fit in anywhere nicely so we left it out. Guy Schubert set many ‘awkward’ controls such as 82 which you couldn’t link in well.
Planning was mentally tough considering many variables, taking us around 90 minutes! I measured our total route with my map measurer and it was approximately 36 kms. This equated to around 9 kilometres per hour. We then used this rate to determine where we would need to be on each of the half hours and hours; this would allow us to track our progress and help decide if we were on track. We set a time goal for 5:10pm to get to control 62 ; if we were there earlier, we would consider doing an out and back to control 58 – the only control excluded from our route.
After an efficient rogaine briefing, we were off at 3pm towards controls 60, 31 and 82. These controls were in a new housing estate and it was interesting seeing the emerging development. We ran along the railway line to control 80 and continued collecting all the checkpoints south of the hash house. At control 76, we could see control 86, a mere hop, skip and a thick creek crossing away – as tempting as it was, we decided we had to approach that control from the west. I was excited on our approach to control 101 as I knew the clue was ‘helicopter’ – I was slightly underwhelmed when we got there. Control 101 was our goal for 4pm, we arrived there 3:51pm, things were looking good but it was early days.
The next hour was spent heading north, zigging between all the controls on the western side of the map. It was enjoyable running along the train line and through the quiet dirt roads. We saw lots of teams and it was nice seeing everyone having a pleasant day out! Controls 69 and 91 were on the Burnside creek – this was a beautiful creek system and almost certainly a place I wouldn’t have ever visited if it wasn’t for rogaining.
We arrived at control 62 at 5:02pm, 8 minutes ahead of our 5:10pm time goal. We decided to take the “gamble”, and headed on an out and back to control 58. It was now looking like we were on track to collect all the controls. We then collected controls 74 and 30 before heading into the Strathalbyn suburbs to collect the remainder of the controls.
By now, I was beginning to feel mentally tired. Whilst the navigation wasn’t super tricky, we still had to be careful to count the streets and paths correctly. In the Strathalbyn town, we ran past a few pubs and beer gardens – everyone looked relaxed and I’m sure their drinks were much tastier than my luke-warm electrolyte water!
At 30 minutes to go we were at control 94 on the northern end of the new estate. I was getting tired but we continued around to control 73. The down hill after control 73 gave me some new energy as we headed to control 66, 83 and then around to 70. As we were exiting control 70, we saw Darrel, Scott and Andy, a very strong men’s team. I was petrified as I thought that perhaps they were on track to get all the controls too and I knew that if it came to a last minute sprint, the odds were stacked their way. We then sprinted to control 81 and then to the hash house. We arrived back at 6:02:51 just as the ‘sundowner’. Overall we travelled 39.22km averaging 6:11 per kilometre. I was really happy that I managed to sustain this pace over 4 hours and whilst collecting 54 controls.
After the event we enjoyed talking to the different teams and hearing about every one’s days out. When the results were announced, we were thrilled to have won and to have done this together! We were happy for our friends Joel, Mandy and Steve for coming second in the scouts, and it was great that the women’s category was tightly contested. Camilo and I were very grateful to Guy for setting the event, Craig for mapping and coordinating, and to the amazing admin team. As a cherry on top, a week later an article was published in the Strathalbyn local paper, “The Southern Argus” and we felt special to feature. Link to the map: https://sarogaining.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2026-4hr-strathalbyn-final.pdf
