Saturday - Kahli's Rocks
For those back in Sydney you may have thought that the weekend was rather chilly. Well let me tell you the weather on the Central Highlands- Bathurst, Orange, Molong was extremely warm only if you were a penguin holidaying from Antarctica.
Saturday saw the crowd gather at Kahli's Rocks which is midway between Bathurst and Orange and conveniently located about 600m off the Mitchell Highway. The map was made initially by Eric Andrews and named after Eric's dog who unfortunately met up with a rather large snake whilst Eric was mapping and passed away. Fittingly we entered the map through "Kahli's Gate."
There is a lot of open on the map but once you head off the plateau areas it is slower and very tough navigation. Gordon Wilson, Bennelong, set excellent courses and winning times were pretty close to planned times.
Dave Lotty, Open Easy was home first, as were the 16A twins - Maggie Mackay and Jonathan Nolan. Ant Nolan, M50A was second and Jim Mackay M65A along with Jan Sargood W65A were 3rd in their classes. Wayne Eliot was just off the pace in M40A finishing 4th.
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| Maggie's Course |
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| Wayne's course |
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| Ant |
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| Jan |
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| Jono |
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| Maggie |
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| The open paddock - "the Ice Pit" |
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| Wayne leading Rohan Hyslop home! |
A feature of the Saturday event was that there was this howling cold southerly blowing. Whilst it was sheltered in the forest and a lot warmer, the finish arena was in an open paddock. It was so chilly that even the sausages cooking on the juniors BBQ were icing up! Needless to say there was little socialising post race as people headed to their cars to warm up and make a quick exit.
Dinner was consumed at various venues between Bathurst and Molong. I did hear that the NSW Junior all dined at a great pub in Orange.
Sunday - Gumble Pinnacles
Sunday morning dawned chilly but no wind. The sun was still in bed behind a blanket of cloud and refused to come out until later in the day.
Gumble Pinnacles is located approx. 40 minutes west of Molong and is a map of two characters. One -open and fast and the second thick, slow and tricky. Course setter Greg Barbour, Big Foot, made sure you worked hard for your progress.
Dave Lotty doubled up with another first in Open Easy and also scoring a weekend double was Jonathan Nolan M16A. Having a "blinder" in W55AS was Gayle Shepherd who was almost 14 minutes faster than her 2nd place competitor. There was a brace of Uringan 3rd places. Maggie Mackay W16A, Sarah Garnett W65A and Rick Steele M65A.
Special mention here in that Maggie and Jonathan are very much in the mix for selection in the NSW School's team for the Australian Schools Championships which will be held in Western Australia in late September. The final selection races will be held over the KB3 weekend ( formerly known as the QB3). Fingers crossed for strong performances from this pair.
With the wind nowhere to be felt there was a lot of catching up with friends post event. Coffee and cake was the order of the day. A thoughtful Big Footer had a warming fire prepared which many of the younger set delighted in keeping it blazing.
Another innovative feature were the "sneaker results". As there was no phone reception, Andy Simpson printed results regularly and these were attached to some nearby corflute!
Now we have mentioned Livelox before. Ant, on the Uringa Facebook page, bravely put up his tracking from day 2 pointing out that sometimes the brain and the map are at odds with each other. (As an aside I would be pretty happy with that run if it was mine!)
To have a look go to:
https://www.livelox.com/Viewer/2023-NSW-State-League-6-Long-Distance/M50A?classId=601720&tab=player
and on the left click on Ant Nolan then press the play button.
Livelox is a great training tool:
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| Gayle was heading for control 1 (top of photo) from the start. Granite terrain can all look the same. |
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| Rick's course |
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| Ryan Patterson- all of 5years old! |
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| Sarah |
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| Sarah's Course |
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