QB III / Dubbo

QB III took us back to Dubbo this year! A large contingent of Uringa members travelled to the country and apart form the usual suspects it was great to see the Nolan and Mackay families in action, with all the kids having a go on various courses.
For me it was the first time back since JWOC (World Junior Orienteering Championships) in 2007 with memories such as absolutely freezing weather, manning the start for 5 hours in the shade, and Aldo & me being sick for the entire week and our 12 year old nephew looking after us!!
Thus I never got the opportunity to run in this magnificent terrain and was looking forward to some challenging orienteering on some "crazy" maps. And Dubbo didn't disappoint - it
redeemed itself this time with the most amazing weather for starters. Blue skies, sun, sun and sun, "warmish" temperatures over all 3 days - thermals, Gortex, beanie and gloves were not required.
The maps used for the long and middle distance events were awesome, and the NSW Stingers did a great job with setting the courses in this rocky and sometimes diffuse terrain.  The compass was a must to keep direction, but I heard through the grape vine that Finn got around the 3 days without a compass and came 2nd in M14A in what is his first year of bush orienteering.....another Pasi Ikonen in the making??? (Pasi is an international Finnish orienteer and I believe is the only top orienteer to compete without a compass!!). These 2 events were definitely orienteering at it's best!!
The sprint event was organised by the Western Plains Club and was held about 25km west of Dubbo at Brummagen Creek - and was run entirely in the bush. Although the courses looked pretty straight forward, there was lots of room for error in the erosion gullies!! Don't mentioned the prickly pears or whatever they were; they looked a bit like tiny cucumbers with very, very nasty spikes on them, and it was really difficult to remove them with your fingers......and painful. There was also a certain grass which just seem to get "stuck" on everyone, with the main activity of the afternoon being plucking all the grass out of gaiters,  O pants, socks and shoes!!

Day 1 / Sprint

Day 2 / Long distance

Day 3 / Middle

Uringans featured prominently on the podium (overall over 3 days):

M/W10              Jonathon Nolan              completed

                          William Nolan                 completed

                                                 

W14A                Sophie Jones                 2nd

M14A                Finn Mackay                   2nd

W16A                Georgia Jones                1st

W45A                Linda Sesta                    2nd

M45A                Ian Jones                        2nd

W45AS              Gayle Shepherd             2nd

M45AS              Dave McKenna               1st

M70A                Dick Ogilvie                    1st

W80A                Maureen Ogilvie             1st

Thanks to everyone who was involved in running this fabulous 3 Day event, including our own SI Guru Ron who ran the finish/results etc!