Tag: Park and Street Orienteering

“Along with my partner Andrew Johnston we started orienteering mid-2018. By late December 2018 we started going to Monday night StreetO regularly and quickly became hooked, at the same time we also discovered Geoff’s (Hudson) Suburban Adventure Racing series which we also love.

Through the Autumn/ Winter series in 2019 we decided to do both Monday and Wednesday nights as by this stage we were both well and truly addicted to the sport. Andrew has also taken me Rogaining on some 6 and 12 hour events, and we have done a couple of Metrogaines as well. When Lauris Stirling put the call out for course setters towards the end of the Winter series we both thought we’d have a go at setting a course each, and after an OCAD training course with Geoff, I started setting my very first course using the Waterford Gully map in Rowville. With no experience in course setting I didn’t really have too much of a plan.

My goal was to keep the controls as consistently spaced as I could and to use as much of the map as I could by going out to all corners of the map without being too long in distance. From there I just focused on trying to have route choices in every possible direction, I tried to make it so that as a runner there was not an immediately obvious drop of controls for course A, then being a power walker myself making sure there was enough options for those wanting to walk short and long distances. I feel I was very fortunate the event I chose to course set lent itself to providing multiple options, with winding streets going off in all different directions, with a few parks providing cut throughs and the basin through the middle providing ways to link as well. I was so nervous on the night as to what people would think, everyone was so complimentary, and now to have won the award on my very first attempt I’m a bit shocked, it’s certainly a confidence boost to do more course setting in the future.”