Report
- Details
- Duration: 24 hour
- Year: 2024
- Type: Australian Champs
Congratulations to the 2024 Australasian Winners
Held on 7-8 September 2024 at Grimwade, WA - The Mysterious Traveller 24hr Rogaine.
Awards presented by ARA President Paul Guard. Ordered by descending score. Note the name order may not match the photos. Photos by Elena Ghergori.
- Details
- Duration: 24 hour
- Year: 2024
- Type: State Champs
Congratulations to the 2024 WARA State Championships Winners
Held on 7-8 September 2024 at Grimwade, WA - The Mysterious Traveller 24hr Rogaine.
Awards presented by WARA President Andre Morkel. Ordered by descending score. Note the name order may not match the photos. Photos by Elena Ghergori.
- Details
2018 Autumn 12 hour Rogaine (Sat 20 October 2018)
I decided to put up my hand to set the event, 6 weeks prior to the event, as no else seemed to be stepping up to the plate. Wil had the area picked out, sent me the map that was used two years ago, was in discussions with dpaw to obtain permission to hold the event, and there was a readymade HH site, provided we could contact the landowner. Roped in Dick and Stan to give me a hand with the field work, and made our first visit to the area on Monday 17th Sept. Introduced ourselves to Denis and Joanne Luelf, obtained permission to have the Hash on their property, and also obtained the contact details for the owner of Gunapin Ridge, the farmland in the southern part of the map. Visited the Hash House site, then the Gunapin Farm area, but unfortunately there was nobody at home, so did a general reconnaissance of the map area. Set in a few controls near the Hash and then headed home. Did an armchair set before heading off again on Friday 21st to set as many controls as we could, while we still had Stan with us, as he was off to Melbourne, driving across for the Eagles grand final, with his mate Dave.
We welcomed aboard Ken Maxfield and Nathan Seal to help with the setting and vetting field work, and as they both had 4wd vehicles, it was a big help. Their first foray into the field was quite eventful, as they managed to get both 4wd vehicles bogged in a particularly soft, wet, muddy section of a track. Fortunately both vehicles did not get bogged at the same time, more by good luck than good management, but it just goes to show that unforseen situations can happen at any time.
The only other small hiccup we had, was that part of the farmland that we thought was owned by the Luelf's, and had placed preliminary controls there, was owned by the neighbouring farmer, Max Edwards, whom we managed to track down, and obtain permission to traverse his land. Only to discover that part of the land that we wished to use was covered in Lupin crop, so the necessary control positions were suitably adjusted.
Hung the controls on the Friday and Saturday, prior to the event, and obtained permission to have a HH fire, which was kindly made by Brendon Luelf, Thank You Brendon. Brendon was the farmer cutting the hay near the HH on the Saturday morning.
We did have one incident while hanging the controls on the Saturday morning, a week before the event. Chris and I were walking in off West Talbot Rd, to hang control 42, we had left Dick in the car, and we came across a chap and his partner, in a 4wd ute which had 3 very large dogs on it. The owners were about to give the dogs a swim in the nearby dam, and they were not expecting to see other people. Two of the dogs charged at Chris and me, and jumped up on us, but did not bite us, but gave us a terrible scare. The heart rate for both of us certainly shot up, and the thought did cross my mind that the Rogaine name, was may be about to come true???? In my opinion, the thing that saved us from getting seriously injured, was the fact that we did not run, we just stood our ground. Fortunately the owners managed to get the dogs under control and assured us they would not be there the following weekend when the event was on. The dogs were some Sth African Mastiff breed I think.
Dick, Chris and I travelled to the event on the Friday morning, set up our camp, and placed the direction and No Shooting signs out, carried out a bit of maintenance on the track in to Hash, and waited for the truck to arrive.
The event went off very well with no major mishaps; all competitors seemed to enjoy the course and as all the controls were in the correct place, there seemed to be a lack of discussion around the campfire disputing the "where a bouts" of a certain control. However there were several comments made about control 100, but all good, and that it was a great location. For the record, it was also my favourite control position.
It was good to see Brendon, Sarah and Jack(1yrs old) Luelf, enter the event and enjoy a walk around part of their farm and some surrounding bush, even though Brendon did have trouble with the sole of his boot coming adrift before they had even set off.
Congratulations to all the category winners, and for the record, the overall winners, Shane Lewis and Tom Chadbourne, covered almost 67km and visited 53 of the 64 controls, a great effort. I hope that all who participated enjoyed their experience and will continue have fun in the great outdoors in future events.
Thanks to all who volunteered to collect controls, it was greatly appreciated, and to those who volunteered, but were not required on this occasion, thanks for offering. Thank You also to all who helped pack up and clean the site, a job well done. It would be remiss of me not to thank John Herzfeld for his mighty effort and tireless energy with nothing being too much trouble to organise. So a big thank you John for all your help and expertise in helping to make the event a success.
A big, big thank you to the landowners, a tremendous bunch of people, who gave us permission to traverse their land, with special thanks to the Luelf family for allowing us to camp on their land.
I must also thank my fellow setters and first time vetters, Ken and Nathan, who have done a mighty job in the short time available to bring this event together. Also thanks to Chris for helping with control hanging and event chores and helping to make this another memorable rogaine.
John Tanner
Event Setter
- Details
2018 Autumn 12 hour Rogaine (Sat 28 April 2018)
Around Australia Day there was only one person listed on the volunteering list to set and vet the 2018 Autumn rogaine: Ian Spencer. Maybe the rest of us took pity on him but, for whatever reasons, suddenly he found he had four helpers out of the blue and things started to happen. Two of the helpers, Emma and Jo, had hoped to set the event near Katanning but, because the map data could not be obtained in time, the event had to be set on a site for which WARA already had data and the necessary permissions from land owners. So it was that once again we were headed for the Julimar State Forest and the adjoining farm land to set this event. The previous event at this site was the 2017 Upside Down 12 hour Bunuru Dreamtime event.
The Julimar State Forest offers a good range of terrain for rogaining: from quite flat land to steep(ish) sided gullies, from open woodlands to thickly vegetated, mostly prickly ground and from areas with few suitable features for controls to areas thick with features, many of them parallel ones. The tracks, where they go over steep ground, are badly eroded which makes driving a slow business. But on the flatter areas the tracks are quite good although there are a few tree falls with detours to slow progress.
Ian did an armchair set and armed with his map, Andre and Patrick found a cool enough day in the middle of February to visit the site and make a start. It would have been a good start except someone forgot to take the plates to hang at the controls so they had to content themselves with making GPS waypoints at likely spots and getting to know some of the tracks. Emma and Jo later did what the blokes should have done and hung the plates.
As it turned out, Jo and Emma could only visit the site at weekends, Andre and Patrick only during the weeks, and Ian unfortunately could not visit the site at all due to ill health and work commitments. In the end Ian had to pull out and Andre took over the responsibility for the map. We hope you get better soon Ian.
The four of us who could visit the site did not actually all meet up until the event. In the meantime, we communicated mostly by email. We ended up sharing the setting and vetting but, even then, some controls were only ever visited by one pair. A GPS waypoint was made for each control and then uploaded to the draft map. There might have been grizzles about some controls but no-one seems to have complained that any control was wrongly mapped.
Because of camping restrictions in the State Forest, we were forced to site the hash house on private land and we have to thank Eric Huuppponen for generously agreeing again to having us on his farm. The hash house was only 100 m or so from where it was for the Bunuru Dreamtime event. Perhaps we should have called this event the Déjà Vu All Over Again Rogaine.
By mid April John Herzfeld had given us the FCUs (field control units for those in the dark) and the corflutes to hang at the controls so we started visiting the 60 spots we had marked to swap plates for the real things. We managed to do that quite quickly and were just about ready for nearly 300 rogainers. By Friday evening we were ready.
The event went well. It was quite a warm day and we were undecided about a fire until late on in the day. The small fire we did have seems to have been appreciated. Thanks to all those who entered and a special thanks to the hash house and administration vollies, especially John H, who all did a great job.
Emma, Jo, Andre and Patrick.
- Details
The first event for the 2018 year was held in varying bushland along the head of the Canning River, 70km south east of Perth.
The weather was a moderate 30deg, the wind fairly strong and no rain.
There were 128 teams registered with 353 people. Over 50 of those registered were novices, so we as Setters were keen to make sure they had an enjoyable day out. It was a great thrill for the Setters and Vetters to have 9yo Violet want to celebrate her birthday out on the Rogaine Course.
A big thanks to Phil and Keith Dufty for their wise advice and efficient vetting..... as first time Setters, we were very lucky to have 2 experts putting us in the right direction.
Thanks also to Jim Langford for the setting up of the controls and organising the equipment to be sent. He was also Admin Coordinator for the day, ably supported by the Admin volunteers, Ian and Debbie Grose, Ian Spencer, Chip Lundstrom. Ann Smithson was Safety Coordinator, Libby Drenen First Aid Officer and Susan Rollason drove the truck to site.
The controls included a TeePee (51), old bridges that had collapsed or near to it (85, 52, 71), modern walking trail bridges (82), the lovely Bibbulmun Track bridge across the Canning River (83, the only watercourse we found water in!) and some spectacular views from hilltops (60, 94). Some of the controls even had jars of lollies to keep the energy levels high.
Most of the bush was fairly easy walking having had bushfires through in previous years to make the ground cover fairly clear. This was not the case for anyone trying to get across the dry watercourses.... In some cases, you couldn't help but feel it was impenetrable (80-100). The many tracks in the area helped getting between controls
This was our first attempt at setting a course and we only had positive thoughts for the experience. It gives a whole new dimension to understanding rogaining. If you have been thinking of how to set a course, any of the committee is more than happy to have a chat.
Elena Ghergori
John Herzfeld