Uringa News: NSW Middle and Long Championships

Quite a large contingent of Uringans headed over the mountains to participate in the champs.

Held on a brand-new map in the Rylstone area everyone was looking forward to what was instore.

The area around Rylstone is well known for its pagoda rock formation with well-known local maps feature this unique rock formation- Gardens of Stone, Dunns Swamp, Long Swamp to name a few.

Saturday – Middle Distance.

The start and finish were remote to the assembly area and involved a 2.3km round trip fortunately on a flat road.

The courses were well set and in areas of intense rock it was easy to make mistakes. There were many tales of disaster and the fallen timber certainly made headway slow at times.

Unfortunately for those on Hard 5 the course had to be cancelled as there were several control codes in the descriptions that did not match those in the field.

Interestingly the only logical theory that I have heard was that the incident happened when creating a 1:7500 version of the map that was used by Hard 5 only.

Maggie Mackay continued her good form finishing 2^nd in W16A. Linda Sesta and Ant Nolan were 3^rd in W55A and M50A respectively.

Saturday night at the Kandos pub a large group of Uringans, former Uringans and friends of Uringans gathered had a long dinner. (I felt sorry for the cook and his off sider as we had a big mob and then there were the locals however) the food was excellent.

Erica negotiating fallen timber

Dave approach his control

Gayle didn't need to duck

M55a course

W16A course

Jane getting her head around the map.

Sarah is always serious when orienteering!

Ant leaving the start Middle Distance

Fallen timber made for slow times

Sunday- Long Distance

Having scraped the ice of the windshield it was back out to Breakfast Creek for round 2.

Credit cards serve dual purposes

This time the start and finish were close at hand although the walk to the start was a bit of a climb over boulders, trees and fallen timber. Once there we faced the starter and off into the bush we went. The courses featured many pagodas and some vague areas which again made you work hard.

It was an excellent set of Uringan results with Maggie 1^st in W16A, Jonathan 2^nd M16A. Dave also 2^nd in Open Easy, and Mary Jane was 2^nd in W75A ( may just be her best result in a championship event. There was a brace of 3rds with Gayle in W55A, Shane M50A and Ron M65A.

Very frosty arena

Ant's M55A course

Mary Jane's W75A course

Ron with Ken

Gayle with Paula

Linda with great rival, Jenny

After the presentation it was time to reflect on a great weekend. The weather was cool but we had sunshine in the arena which made socialising very pleasant. Garingal did an excellent job on what was their 50^th Birthday.

Everyone scored a biscuit to celebrate Garingal's 50th Birthday

Naturally any trip over the mountains has a “dread” component- the trip down the mountain back to the Sydney basin. Well not sure about anyone else but apart from a slight hold up in the Medlow bath roadworks it was plain sailing. Mind you we travelled down the Heathcote Road and were met with big smoke, lots of flashing lights and flames as the RFS back burning operation, which was to carpet Sydney with smoke for days on end, was in full flight.

Well that almost winds up the bush season with a Metro to go. Further afield a small tribe of Uringans are heading to WA for the National Champs.

Maggie Mackay and Jonathan Nolan have the added honour of representing NSW in the Australian School Championships as well as competing in the Australian Sprint, Middle, Long and relay Champs.

Also heading west is Ian McKenzie, Gayle Shepherd and Ron Pallas.

We wish them all a good time in the bush.

By the way you may notice Gayle and Garry wearing matching shirts. The shirts are the volunteers shirts for the 2024 Australian Champs which will be staged in Armidale. The web site is now up https://aoc2024.com.au/ and I would suggest you get in early to book accommodation.