Tag: 24-hour

The Aus Champs… With a Few Surprises

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Written by Jo Powell

My sister Karen and I headed to Nundubbermere, Queensland last weekend for the Australasian Rogaining Championship — about three hours south‑west of Brisbane and, as we discovered, an event that held a few surprises.

We arrived by bus in the dark, greeted our fellow South Aussies, Shanti and Cath, pitched our tents, and were immediately rewarded with a dinner that could convert anyone to championship rogaining: huge, perfectly cooked beef chunks, roast veg, fresh salad and sticky date pudding with cream – yum! After that feast, sleep came easily.

Morning revealed our first surprise. Instead of the lush Queensland greenery we’d imagined, we woke to rolling hills, brown grass and drought‑stricken trees. The cool air filled quickly with 240 competitors collecting their event bags — maps, an event pen, a flyer for next year’s World Rogaining Championships in SA, and… water purification tablets. Not something you normally get handed in South Australia.

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World Rogaining Championships – Spain 2025 Race Review

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We arrived in Spain several days early to prepare for the event. The model event gave us a chance to get familiar with the terrain and map. It quickly became clear that areas marked green really were thick and best avoided, while the surrounding landscape was beautiful and inspiring.

Everything for the Rogaine was packed carefully the night before, dividing our food into 4– 6-hour bags so we could keep eating consistently throughout the event. Bottles were filled, gear, torches and safety gear packed — everything ready. After a big breakfast the next morning, we set off for the event.

For planning, the northern part of the map was hilly, while the terrain sloped steadily downhill as you moved south. We decided to tackle the hills early in the day while we were strongest, leaving flatter ground for the later hours. The technical planning was split between us where we were analysing points per kilometre along with distances and alternate routes.

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The subtle (and not so subtle) art of getting it wrong

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Written by Bruce Greenhalgh

‘The art of losing isn’t hard to master’ – Elizabeth Bishop ‘One Art’

Sometimes you get it right; sometimes you get it wrong. Unfortunately for Des Norman and myself the Tuilkilkey rogaine was one where things had a tendency to go wrong. Indeed, they went so wrong that it’s a rogaine I’d rather forget. But I know that tales of woe are at least as interesting as those of success so I will record our exploits for your edification and amusement.

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AUSTRALASIAN ROGAINING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2025

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“Murrumbidgee Wayfaring”, Kosciuszko National Park, NSW

Written by Evelyn Colwell

On our drive up to the Koscuiszko National Park we noted that the mountains looked lovely, but the vegetation was rather thick for walking. However, Long Plains proved to be what they are named after, long pastures (it looked easy walking whilst driving through) surrounded by relatively low-lying hills covered with gum trees. Perfect rogaining country. We met David Baldwin (one of the setters) on entering the still sparsely populated campground and a couple of disgruntled horse people leaving.

Fellow South Aussies, the Hearndens, were already set up having arrived the night before. On David Baldwin’s advice we set out after lunch to the local Coolemine Homestead. Amazingly neat and beautifully reconstructed. A very isolated but gorgeous location. Nearby was Clarke Gorge and its caves. I would very much like to revisit this spot and do the whole gorge walk one day. (The Clarke Gorge Trail is apparently THE most fun and spectacular hike in NSW according to many on the internet. Ed)

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Not Just Three Creeks, Event Report

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Written by one half of the winning team of the SA State Champs, Julie Quinn, ACT

David Baldwin and myself are rogaining tragics (in David’s words). One of our favourite places to rogaine is South Australia so we talked about taking a few days off work and coming over for the state champs when they were planned for near World’s End. We were even more keen when we heard that they had been moved further north to near Holowilena where we had an excellent rogaine a few years ago.

We were grateful for booking a motel room in Hawker on the Friday night (mostly so we could recharge our EV) when the wind and rain came up. It didn’t sound like there was much good pre-event sleep at the HH, especially for the Dream Team and their flattened tent. There was a freezing wind that greeted us when we arrived in the morning, so we quickly set ourselves up in a sheep pen in the shearing shed to plan. Great to see some of our SA rogaining friends at the event too. On assurances by setters, Craig and Evelyn, that we would get around the entire course, and with our string measurement at roughly 90 km, we drew a loop around all the controls. The route would take us east into the hills, getting the hard work done early, before looping back north and west into the flatter, and hopefully faster, part of the course.

We headed out SW from the HH and were quickly on our own – #22 didn’t seem like a popular control to start with! It had not warmed up much and both of us had our rain jackets and buffs on to stay warm even though we were jogging much of it. As always it took a bit of time to get our heads into the scale of the course and what was mapped or not, working out that even what was only a couple of contours on the map looked quite big on the ground because it was so clear. This proved to be the case even more so at night with what looked like huge mountains by moonlight being tiny knolls!

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Reflections on the ARC 2023 in Goobang NP, NSW

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Written by Craig Colwell (Team 23)

Evelyn and I travelled to NSW to compete in the 43rd Australian Rogaining Championships which were being held in and around the Goobang NP, located east northeast of Parkes, NSW on 30 September to 1 October.

The Hash House was adjacent to Lake Endeavour, which kept the temperature slightly cooler during the night.  Paul Guard (ARA president) has provided some excellent aerial footage of the camp site which can be viewed on the NSW Rogaining website here. Unfortunately, the temperature during the event was in the low 30s during the daytime with a strong northerly breeze blowing and still very warm during the night unless you were near a waterway or water body. The hot weather had a detrimental effect on our and other team’s performances.

The course setters created a very well-presented and detailed map (A1 size at 1:25,000 scale) with 85 controls to collect with a total of just over 5000 points.  Only 4 teams managed more than 60% of the course, with most of the teams covering less than 40% of the map.

There were six water drops plus the Hash House and a remote ‘All Night Café’. All were needed in the warm conditions to keep hydration up.

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