Good Times at Goorooyaroo

Orienteering was at Goorooyaroo which has almost as many o's as Ngangaguringguring has g's! Ella met up with her cousins, Makhaya and Luca.  Together they decided to tackle the 1.9km blue course, which being very easy is usually on big (pram friendly) tracks - not today. 

The course started off following a fence which had a nice vehicle track alongside, however after the 3rd control, the vehicle track veered away from the fence which the blue course was following.  The prams went into 4WD (actually 3WD) drive as the terrain became steep, rocky and tussocky - nothing like a bit of adventure!  Although Ella had the weight advantage (Richie was not only pushing the pram, but he was also carrying Luca in the baby bjorn), Makhaya was leading the way and spiking those controls.

Makhaya's control flow probably needs a little improvement.  At each control, the pram was carefully positioned, the control stand adjusted (which involved nearly pulling it over so it was at the right height for little arms to reach), then Makhaya would carefully place the dibber back onto one of his fingers and insert it into the hole.  The SI unit would beep, to indicate we had been to the control. Then it would beep again, and again, and again... perhaps up to 10 times before Richie suggests to Makhaya to take it out!  So Makhaya would take it out only to put it back in again (just in case it hadn't recorded the first time!) On leaving the control Makhaya would say "more? more?"

So we continued at breakneck speed around the blue course.  The second half of the course took us onto a large vehicle track to the finish.  Ella and Makhaya decided to walk the final section of the course.  Makhaya

 was fascinated by fallen logs.  He thought he was extraordinarily clever (which of course he is) as he stepped over each log (several times!)

We did eventually reach the finish - even though we were distracted by more cousins (Joshua and Mia).  Our time of 51.45 was the fastest team time for the day.