Training Log Archive: mikedufty

Ding Dong Avongaine
The promise of heat, ticks, parrot bush and no fire was enough to put my kids off so I got to do another Rogaine with Ian.
We both like Avon Valley NP, at least the bits near the river, so planned a course to get all the main river valley controls in the daylight. This seems to have been a good move as the further parts of the map seemed to have most of the horrible bush.

Started off running the long way around the tracks to 86 to avoid parrot bush near the airstrip, failing to notice it was just one row of bushes, still made it to the control first. Quite nice bush through the next few controls then a track out to 91 overlooking the Avon. Quite pretty bush skirting around the top of the gullies from 91 to 81, but lots of spiderwebs, then steep descent to 81 with fantastic views from the cliff tops of where we were heading, making the navigation easy, though getting down the cliffs was interesting.

Basically along the railway/river to 77, found an overgrown access track with less hills than the active one. Big climb up out of the valley to 92 which was actually really easy but we managed to dither a bit wondering if subtle contour features were the ones on the map, when actually the ones on the map were huge and obvious when you got there.

Nearly back to the hash house after that to 23, seems like it may have been a nice course to do with kids, lots of controls and route choices near the hash house. Managed to forget that 23 wasn't actually on the track despite having read the description for it when planning, luckily Ian looked it up before we wasted any time.

Not sure even the slight diversion for 13 was worth it for 10 points, but nice walking through the middle of the map to 82, then found our first proper bit of parrot bush between there and 12, definitely not worth it for 10 points. The water at 53 was much needed, unfortunately timed our arrival for maximum heat and no shade so not a particularly pleasant stop.

Had to make a decision there whether to go back down the valley to 103, which didn't seem great points wise and would make us cut a loop off the end of the course, and might result be difficult going in steep terrain. Decided that we would do it as that was the good bit of the park. Turned out to be a very good choice. Reasonably open route choices and great views.

Skirted around south of the solid contours between 103 and 31 but got a good view of the rocky gorge. A nice walkable creek then led us to an unmarked walking track we had to leave near the top of the hill to avoid the campsite.

The descent from 31 to 22 had great views of the intimidating valley leading up to 94. This seemed to have potential to be really hard, but in fact the watercourse was very nice walking and it was a highlight of the event. By this stage we had decided the setters were being very nice to us. This was confirmed by finding a Kangaroo track leading nicely up the hill from 94 to 104. Ian was not feeling 100% at this stage so we slowed a bit and started cutting controls off our planned course.

Took the track that runs near 73, and thought there was a slight chance we might see it from the track before taking a bearing off the bend, so kept my eyes peeled, but was surprised to actually spot it from about 200m away, probably saving a few minutes.

Thought we would start with the track toward 65, then shortcut across from the creek junction to the other track. This proved to be a bad move with really awful crossed fallen parrot bush. It seems it was no accident that all the controls in this part of the map are on tracks. We then stayed on tracks to the water at 55 and changed our plan to use even more tracks to 35, before going bush again to 105. More parrot bush there for about 1km, but thankfully opened out. Aimed off too far east and crossed the watercourse without seeing it but managed to backtrack and go downhill till it became distinct.

Aimed off too far again for 96 but found it OK, then headed for 84 rapidly running out of time. This watercourse was a bit like the 105 one, we must have crossed it in the dark without seeing anything obvious. The GPS shows I circled in the right place looking for it. Unfortunately we didn't have time to figure it out and had to run back to the hash house. 5min early this time instead of 5 minutes late.

A very enjoyable rogaine and particularly good setting I thought. A shame some of the bush was a bit horrid.

Managed 8th place, the same as last time I went with Ian.