Emus Online
Edited by Robert Edmonds The full edition with pictures can be viewed by clicking on the link above.
EASTER 2010 HAPPENINGS
Good Friday Prologue: When I arrived at the Royal Australian Defence Academy in Canberra, you would have thought that orienteers had mounted a surprise attack. They were everywhere and no defence forces in sight. What a great venue for park orienteering!
Day 1 – Gudgenby Homestead: This area of the Namadgi National Park is sub-alpine; absolutely beautiful! The assembly area was at the historic Gudgenby Station. The terrain is a mixture of complex granite with fire regrowth, providing for sections of extremely technical orienteering. A part of the map is open grassland with some scattered granite. The courses were set a bit longer than expected and most runners had problems at some stage in the rock. A good get together dinner at the Kingston Hotel Bistro in Griffin was organised by Lauris Stirling.
Day 2 – Kowen East: The Kowen Forest is near Queanbeyan. We were blessed with another beautiful day. Once again Ron Frederick gained the prime viewing spot for the club gazebo. Kowen East has a mixture of open and lower visibility pine forest and an extensive track network. It is undulating to steep with generally good runnability, slowed by trimmings in some areas. There are many small clearings and log piles, some scattered rock and erosion detail.
In the afternoon, Rob and Helen rode around Lake Burley Griffin (just over 30 km) before visiting the French Masters Exhibition at the National Art Gallery. The Fells went the next day. Despite ominous reports there were no problems with crowding or queuing.
Day 3 – Collector Hill: Another terrific day; a bit warmer. Collector Hill is an unusual area and courses included areas of interesting rock ridge with large cliff lines, hill-sides with termite mounds and an old mining area. Runnability was highly variable from open running farm paddocks and open eucalyptus forest to areas of significant fallen timber and low visibility Casuarina.
Club members didn’t figure highly in the placings, but there were several interesting tussles between members, e.g. W55A: Fiona Fell, Pam King, Helen Edmonds and Laurie Niven. Unfortunately, Fiona had a DNF on Saturday because she had to attend to an injured person about three quarters of the way around her course. Helen didn’t register a punch on Day 1 and Laurie ended up taking the honours. Another good battle took place in M55A: Alan Watts, Rex Niven, Don Fell, Geoff Hudson and Rob Edmonds.
Nillumbik Emus 