O @ Sandhills

The ACT O Champs were held over the weekend at the Sandhills, just outside of Bungendore. With soccer (and one girl sick), plus bathroom stuff delivery, finishing painting the fascias and removing the laundry cupboards, we decided on giving the Saturday event a miss.

Laundry stripped bare!

Despite the crisp Sunday morning (-5.8ªC!), it was a cracker of a day with the sun shinning brightly. Fortuitously Andy had only pre-entered himself and Ella which worked well as I was still battling a virus (heading into its 4th week) so was more than happy to be Ella's shadow in the novice class. Andy ran in the M35 class as there was more old man competition in this class rather than in his proper M40 class.

On the way to the start, I asked Ella what were some of the important things to think about while orienteering. Her first comment was to look out for dangerous animals like snakes!! After a few carefully worded comments, we got talking about orientating and reading the map!

The first section of the blue followed a fence line through some thick bracken, then uphill to a dam before a long downhill stretch along the track and finally following a taped route for the last two controls to the finish. Ella lost a little momentum in the middle section but otherwise did fairly well.

Within a few minutes of arriving at the finish, Katy and the rest of the gang were keen to go around the blue course too! So off we went - Katy, Mira, Max, Abby, Zoe, Roy and Lewie plus Bob A and Shep. The group soon splintered with Max, Zoe and Katy running at the front, Abby and Mira singing and walking along with Roy floating somewhere between the two groups and little Lewie bringing up the rear. The dam halfway around proved to be too much of a distraction with all the kids  diverting from the course, opting to throw stones. At least this allowed little Lewie to catch up again.

Luckily we got going before anyone went for a swim with the fast downhill road section. Then is was a short adventure through the bush emerging at the finish and running in altogether. A great time was had by all.