Rogaining Tasmania

Come and join the gathering at The Midlands Muster for Tasmania’s next bush rogaining event on the first weekend in November. This event will be the first 24-hour rogaine in Tasmania since we hosted the Australian Championships at the Bay of Fires in 2019, and the first bush event since the weetapoona wander on Bruny Island in 2021. For budding rogainers who have only entered metrogaines so far, this event will be a great opportunity to test out your bush navigation skills. The organisers have catered for newcomers and there are plenty of checkpoints close to the hash house, as well as durations shorter than the demanding 24-hour category.

There will be a nice blend of country (see photos below) - from open rolling paddocks and native grassy meadows, through to open forested hills and into wet gullies via occasional historic bush huts and lots of wildlife. You will have nearly 200 square kms to explore over either 24 hours, Roving-15 hours (do as much as you like within a 23-hr period), or 6 hours. The event area extends from outside Ross almost to Lake Leake and encompasses some of the best fine wool growing land in the world. Fieldwork and mapping are nearly complete.


The event will challenge rogaining champions with plenty of distance, interesting navigation and ample hilly bits. It will also offer novice entrants an opportunity to practice their navigation skills in beautiful farmland and natural environments, and everyone in-between will find a great mix of terrain, vegetation and chances to spot unique Tasmanian wildlife.


Entries are now open at https://www.rt.asn.au/events/upcoming-events/the-midlands-muster


Bass Burgess

Event Co-coordinator.

 

10 reasons you should attend the Pyrenees Ponder Australasian Rogaining Championship, 8-9 October 2022, Avoca, Victoria.

  1. You’ll help defend Tasmania’s grip on the Interstate Trophy (and make RT prez, Gary, very very happy).
  2. There’s a bus to and from the Hash House (HH) from Melbourne city and Tullamarine airport, making it super easy to get there. The bus will get you back in time to connect to flights home. Jetstar, Virgin and Qantas have flights on Sunday night to Hobart and Launceston, and Qantas has one to Devonport.
  3. For those coming from the Australian Orienteering Championships, the rogaine is following weekend and just over an hour’s drive away.
  4. You’ll get to experience the excitement of a massive rogaine event and meet rogainers from other states
  5. All 24-hour entrants receive a very cool technical t-shirt and 6-hour entrants receive a buff. Entry also includes food and water during and immediately after the event, as well as free camping at the HH before and after the event. Bargain.
  6. You can swap stories with fellow Tasmanian rogainers at Tullamarine on the way home. Just look for the group hunched over maps (and optional celebratory pints).
  7. It’s such a terrific environment that the Pyrenees is soon to become a National Park. Better still, the spur gully systems will be familiar to Tasmanians (unlike 2021’s foreign mallee scrub and dry rivers).
  8. It’s good training for the Midlands Muster Tasmanian champs, particularly for participants who have only experienced metrogaines.
  9. You can enter either the 24-hour championship event or the 6-hour event.
  10. You don’t need to be an expert, a pro athlete, or a serious competitor to enter. Rogaining is fun, friendly, and encourages participation from people of all ages, abilities and levels of ambition.

Entries are open now. Early entry ends 15 August. Late entry ends 30 September. What are you waiting for?

 

Tasmanian rogainers at the 2021 Australian Rogaining Championships in South Australia

 Tasmanian rogainers at the 2021 Australian Rogaining Championships in South Australia

Results are available for the Marieville Mayhem at rt.asn.au/event-results .

Congratulations to Jonathan McComb and Ian Parker for their overall victory in the 6-hr category, and to Anthony Stoner and Niko Stoner in the 3-hr.

Photographs of teams finishing and at the presentations can be found here. Sincere thanks to Jonathon Rees for the excellent photographs.

Winners’ route maps will be published in the next few days. Meanwhile check out Rogaining Tasmania's Facebook page for feedback.

Many thanks to the setters, vetters and admin helpers who made the event possible.

Entries are now open for Rogaining Tasmania’s next event: the Marieville Mayhem Metrogaine in Sandy Bay, Sunday 22 May 2022. 

RT’s next major bush event, the Midlands Muster Tasmanian Rogaining Championships, will be held on the 5/6 November 2022 near Campbell Town. A mix of bush and farmland, this event will be the first 24-hour rogaine in Tasmania since we hosted the Australian Championships at the Bay of Fires in 2019. For those who value their sleep over prowling alongside the local nocturnal quolls, there will also be 6-hour and roving 15-hour options.

Also for your diary is the Pyrenees Ponder Australian Rogaining Championships to be held on the 8/9 October 2022 in the Pyrenees Ranges, Victoria (a 2.5-hour drive from the Spirit of Tasmania terminal). There will be 24-hour and 8-hour options. There was a significant Tasmanian contingent at last year’s Australian Championships near Burra in South Australia. Not only did we win the interstate trophy, but there were a significant number of Tasmanian teams with podium finishes in their respective categories. However, you don’t have to be aiming for a top three finish to participate in the Australian Championships. Participants of all ages and abilities should consider entering to experience the thrilling atmosphere of a major bush rogaine.

Further afield is the 17th World Rogaining Championships, 26 August 2022, in the Czech Republic. The event will take place in the Králický Sněžník and Rychleby Mountains along the Czech-Polish border. Entries close 30 April.

If you’re busting for a few more rogaines in the next few months, some notable mainland events include the ACT championships on the 23/24 April in the high country plains of Kosciuszko National Park, set by the reigning Australian rogaine champions, Julie Quinn and David Baldwin. There’s also a Snowgaine 5.5-hr in Victoria on the 23 July, and a 3- and 5-hour Nightgaine in NSW on the 16 July. The Australian Rogaining Association maintains a calendar of all Australian events.

I had the pleasure of dragging a first-time rogainer, Hamish Lockett, around the Lindisfun metrogaine by foot. We had figured that given the large map area and possibility of a lot of street running, the winning team would probably be covering somewhere between 30-40 kms, depending on where the big points were spread across the map, and we felt up to the challenge.

Upon collecting the map, it was clear that there were two overarching route options, focusing on either the hills of the Meehan Range or south in the streets of Rosny and Howrah. Hamish and I quickly agreed that we needed to see a few more high scoring controls in the hills for it to be worth our while, especially since he considered his strength to be flat running, not the hills. We ended up with a route which took in most of the big controls in the streets of the south, plus a few of the lone hills of the eastern shore. I was glad to find that some of our competition had decided to head into the hills. It would be interesting to see which option proved best!

The weather was hot and sunny, a pleasant respite from the rain of the past few months. Unfortunately, my Garmin watch insightfully informed me that I was only 2% adapted to the heat, and as we averaged 6min/km in the first hour of the rogaine, it quickly became apparent that managing our bodies throughout the 4 hours was going to be key to a successful run.

We headed south trailing Niko and Jett before traversing around Rosny Hill, past Blundstone Arena and quickly arriving at our southernmost point near Wentworth Park. The journey back north involved some occasionally confusing but mostly straight forward navigation through the numerous tracks of Waverley Park and Flagstaff Gully. Climbing the last obstacle for the day, Natone Hill, we both dealt with some leg cramps (a recurring problem for me while rogaining) before arriving back at the hall with 3 minutes to spare. 32kms with 1000m elevation got us to 38 controls totalling 1880 points, enough to secure 1st for the foot category. Thanks once again to everyone who contributed to the event. It was a fun day out with friends.

 

by Oskar Bucirde

 

For those of you wanting to read about daring exploits and dramatic tales of human endurance I would suggest the report from the foot entrants would be far more enthralling. This is a tale of moderate ambition and riding far from the edge. [Jeff says: as a team endurance sport, individuals within the same team will experience a given race differently: maybe one as a nice adventure involving some physical activity, and the other as a desperate feat of human endurance. The latter can give some satisfaction, after a sufficient period of physical and emotional recovery (I’m okay now thanks). Anyhow, back to Ken telling his story…]

The genesis of the “dream team” was a discussion I had with Jeff at an orienteering event along the lines of let’s go for a ride, the metrogaine might be fun. Jeff mentioned he had previously set an event in the area and knew the area pretty well. This knowledge and Jeff’s navigational skills would certainly compensate for my renowned ability to make navigation mistakes whilst under pressure.

Ben, Charlotte and I set and vetted the Lindisfun metrogaine. We tried to set a fun course that had something for everyone: a challenge for the people wanting to push themselves with lots of controls, big hills, and some hard to reach places requiring interesting planning decisions. "To Meehan or not To Meehan" was an important question for competitors planning longer routes, and control 63 proved a challenging find for a few groups. The sunny eastern shore offered plenty for families - fun riding and walking along the foreshore with plenty of opportunity for bakery and ice-cream stops on what ended up a gloriously warm spring day.

 SimonCharlotteBenDavid Lrg

2021 was a successful year for Rogaining Tasmania. Our state has remained free of COVID-19 community transmission enabling us to run our events without disruption, which is certainly not the case on the mainland. Our events were all successful, well-organised and fun! Attendance at our events continues to rise, leading to profitable events and allowing for our entry costs to decrease. 

In the past year we ran the following events: 

  • The Hit and Miss Metrogaine, 29thNovember 2020. This was last year, but within our recent financial year. This event attracted 170 entrants, made up of about 39 teams on foot, and 28 teams on bikes.
  • The weetapoona wander, 27thFebruary 2021. Held on North Bruny Island on Murrayfield Station and surrounding farms. 210 entrants, made up from 44 teams in the 12-hr and 40 teams in the 6-hr. 
  • The Lenah Valley Hop Metrogaine, 22ndAugust 2021. A record attendance for an RT event with 334 entrants. 58 teams in the 3-hr and 77 teams in the 6-hr.
  • The Lindisfun bike and on-foot Metrogainewill be held next weekend. Numbers are looking good for this event and we are likely to get around 200 entrants. 

Honorary life membership is awarded for outstanding service to rogaining in Tasmania. Adele certainly ticks all the boxes.

Adele competed in her first rogaine in 1997, and she quickly became involved in event organisation and administration.

In 2001 she took on the task of Event Director for the Honeysuckle 24- and 8-hour rogaine. This was one of Rogaining Tasmania’s most successful events, mainly due to her team management skills, planning ability, and attention to detail. It was here that her landowner negotiation skills first came to the attention of the committee.

The Lindisfun 4-hour metrogaine has been run and won, although all the entrants were winners on the fun course in the ideal weather.

Congratulations to overall bike category winners Jeff Dunn and Ken McLean, and to the overall on-foot winners Hamish Lockett and Oskar Bucirde.

The results are on the web at https://www.rt.asn.au/event-results. Two hundred photos taken by Carey Barlow can be found here.

winners bike

Bike winners - Jeff Dunn and Ken McLean

winners foot

On-foot winners Hamish Lockett and Oskar Bucirde

 

By Peter & Robyn Tuft

To run more rogaines we need more people to run them, which means more people who can set a good course. So we organised a workshop for potential course setters on 10 October, feeling that we'd be pleased if a handful of people expressed interest. We were more than pleased when nine potential new setters turned up, together with old hands Gary Carroll, Bernard Walker, Sara Brain and Liz Canning. Having course-setting wisdom available from such a broad range of experience was a real bonus.

training med

Peter Tuft, sharing his considerable wisdom!

The location was our bush block near Kettering, which was ideal because it had a nice meeting room (our lounge room, although a bit of a squeeze for the crowd) and a very good map (very conveniently produced previously as a test of Lidar-based vegetation mapping). Most of what we covered was focussed on bush events because they are the most challenging to set well, but we also touched on metrogaines and (very briefly) some other aspects of event organisation (you do realise that there is a whole lot more to organising a rogaine than just setting the course?)

  1. Lenah Valley Hop Results

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