Written by intrepid Victor explorer, Bruce Greenhalgh
As a school boy I was taught about the European explorers of Australia. By far and away my favourite explorer, for reasons I can’t explain, was Matthew Flinders. I know it’s weird having a favourite explorer, but there you go. Anyway, when I learnt that 2025’s opening rogaine would be held in the environs of Encounter Bay I thought that the theme for my report on the event might well be Matthew Flinders and his explorations. As you probably know the bay is named after the encounter between Matthew Flinders on the Investigator and Nicolas Baudin on the Geographe on the 8th April 1802 (well, you probably didn’t know the date, but knew of the encounter).
The idea of this being the theme was reinforced by my having recently viewed the Flinders exhibition held by – wait for it – Flinders University. Amongst the items on display was a nifty combined compass and sundial once owned by Flinders, the very thing for a 19th Century rogainer! Perhaps Flinders was a fellow rogaining spirit? It did occur to me, of course, that a sundial would only be useful for part of a 24-hour event. Still, it was a desirable object and were they on sale today I’d be tempted.
So, the potential of a Flinders themed report was in the back of my mind as we set off on the Saturday morning in near ideal conditions. Yet there was a contending theme, one used by the organizers in the pre-event publicity and in naming the event ‘What’s your vector, Victor?’ – the world of movies. That too was in the back of my mind as we made our way north to Granite Island then inland and then back toward the coast. It stayed in the back of my mind until we encountered some loose, soft sand on the way from control 55 to 83. I immediately thought of Beau Geste and then Lawrence of Arabia and by the time we were On the Beach I knew that the movie bug had bitten and films had become the theme du jour. So, it was The 39 Steps that we climbed away from the beach and toward control 63 on the golf course where my thoughts turned to Caddyshack. Perhaps this could be a rogaine drinking game? One where you’re required to come up with a relevant movie for every control you visit. Failure to do so means you have to scull an energy drink – something like that.
From the golf course our route took us to the Hindmarsh River. Films such as Deliverance and Apocalypse Now suggest that travelling along rivers doesn’t necessarily work out well for all concerned, but on this occasion we found the control easily. Well, let me qualify the ‘easily’. By this time various bits of me were starting to hurt. In particular, not My Left Foot, but my left knee was painful and reduced my running to only short stretches. Our pace slowed then, as we traversed the north west part of the map giving us time to note that there was a lot of Traffic on one of the back roads. This was a minor distraction from My Own Private Idaho of pain; pain that wasn’t going away. By control 53’s cemetery I didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with a movie even though, I later found out (no surprise) that there are a lot of films featuring cemeteries. These include one titled I woke up early the day I died, appropriate given it had been an early start and that I felt, if not close, then at least closer to death at that point.
Still, we pressed on and into the time when you become very aware of the passing minutes. This period, in movie terms, equates to those scenes in action/drama films where a bomb has a visible timer and the hero has, maybe, just enough time to defuse the bomb before it explodes. It was on-the-edge-of-your-seat stuff as we decided to make control 93 our last. Alas, it did blow up in our faces. We came in late. We were still ahead on points, but without having felt the satisfaction of just beating the ticking clock. Sigh.
At the end I felt a bit like the Investigator (back to the Flinders theme) after its circumnavigation of Australia – in need of repair (Flinders left it and used another ship for his ill-fated return to England). But the Investigator was repaired and sailed on until about 1872. Likewise, I live to fight another day/rogaine and to be indebted to the setters (or should that be the Directors? Producers?), Sef van den Nieuwelaar and Trent McInerney, and the ‘cast and crew’ who made the rogaine run as seamlessly as a well edited movie. Thank you all.
