Tidbinbillagaining - Winter 4hr

Grandad did a sterling job of looking after Pippa and Fuji while we were skiing and only had a few days with us on our return before he flew back to Perth. We took up the opportunity to participate together in the Winter 4hr rogaine at Tidbinbilla.

Canberra certainly turned on beautiful weather for the event with gorgeous clear blue skies and the location, well it's truly an awesome spot - a nature reserve nestled on the fringe of Namadgi National Park. As this was the girls first introduction to rogaining our aim was purely to have fun. We packed lots of snacks and lunch to help us enjoy the outing. Arriving at the event with plenty of time to register, plan our route and soak up the sun before the 10am start time.

Nearly 100 teams (roughly 300 people) turned up for the event. We headed off to the first control following a long trail of people so not much navigating was necessary. The hoards thinned out though and we soon found ourselves in our own company making our way to the next control.

The great thing about rogaining is that you can change your mind at any point so as we approached the hill where a high pointer was located near the top, we voted that it was too steep and not worth the struggle.

So across the paddock we headed amongst the mobs of kangaroos and solo emu. Ella was determined to get a good photo so we all had to stop numerous times and try not to disturb the animals. She did really well in capturing the wildlife and I'm sure Ella could have spent the entire 4 hours there if we'd let her!!

But we continued on.....morning tea was to be had once we reached 100pts. We had teams that went up to the high pointer at the top of the steep hill begin to passing us and from all accounts we made the right choice!

Despite the morning tea break, energy and enthusiasm levels were wavering and with a rather large long climb ahead we needed some distraction. Thankfully that came in the form of javelin practice with sticks, shadow photos, plant inspections, rock climbing and exploring as well as general chit-chat and sing-alongs!

And then we were at the top (well technically the saddle). A quick detour off the track for another high pointer control! Although there was a nicely positioned table at this saddle, we chose to venture a little way down the otherside searching for the perfect lunch spot with awesome views. I think we found it too!

Once lunch was consumed, the girls raced off down the hill, full of energy while we struggled to keep up. We were about 1.5km straight-line from HH with just over an hour left in the rogaine. Looking at our options we had three choices - beeline home collecting minimal points;  high pointer/steep hill followed by beeline home or low pointers/less climb/longer distance. The decision made was for the high pointer/steep hill/beeline home.

Coming off the descent Andy tried to save us some height by contouring through the bush and climbing a little up to the track. Turned out the climbing was almost that!! Lots of complaints from the girls followed and it was struggle town up to this control. The breathtaking views at the top were not at all appreciated by the two younger people in our group - they were more interested in the jelly snakes as a reward!!

From this control we then beelined via two more controls back to the HH. The girls discovered and enjoyed scooping up the slime in the puddles on the side of the track. 

We arrived at the finish with 4 minutes to spare. We collected 330points and covered 7.5km straight line, probably more like 10km. Our first family rogaine was deemed a success.