Setting a rogaine can be a nerve racking experience. You worry that you will forget something or, worst of all, there will be a problem with the map. As it turned out I made one mistake (that I know of) – we started the event 3 to 4 minutes early.  Unfortunately, some teams were not at the briefing and therefore did not know we had started early.  They came in late and were penalised a few points. To those teams that were affected I apologise. My only excuse for this mistake was that no one wanted to wait in the rain for the clock to tick over to noon.

I have not had any complaints about mis-placed controls on the map. Some were certainly hard to find in the featureless country with the thick forest coverage. Where we could not find good control features we often resorted to using track junctions. We used GPS units to check the location of many of the tracks and had to correct their position on several occasions. Without these changes some attack points from tracks would have been incorrect. We had a minor problem with control 100 which we originally hung on the edge of a pine forest. When we returned two weeks later the pine forest was gone. We found the control setting plate and moved it a short distance into a gully. We enjoyed very much hanging control 58 which was tied to “The northern rail”. I regret not warning competitors at the briefing to be wary of the parallel feature “The southern rail”.

The setters and vetters visited the site on five occasions to set and vet the event. On each occasion we had perfect weather and I, for one, enjoyed the whole experience. Coffees and pub meals in Dwellingup all helped. Another weekend was spent in hanging the controls. Tick bites were a problem for the first four weeks, but then the rain came and they seemed less of a problem. I hope no one was unhappy with the rain – we need it so much.

On the competition weekend everything seemed to run smoothly thanks to the great crew we had in Admin and the Hash House. The fire, once we got it going, kept everyone warm. Thanks to Geoff Monk, Ron Lockley and Greg Kent for help with the fire. It was still going fine at 5 pm when I left on Sunday. Thanks to Warren Smith and Craig Dermer for helping with the patrols. This allowed us to get some sleep. Some teams were lucky to see us on patrol because we gave them cakes. We spotted Lesa and Janet (5th place) at the top end of the map early in the morning. We had cakes in the car, ladies, but you seemed to be in a big hurry to go somewhere.

Jim Langford, Mark Brownell, Mark Imbert and Chris Reid.