Beechworth was the base for the final weekend of the Oceania Orienteering Carnival and as we were so late in booking, we missed our on prime accomodation and ended up in Yackandandah, a small country town a 20 min drive away.
On Friday, we explored the nearby Gorge Walk. Originally made by pick, shovel and blasting powder but was later deepened using dynamite, the gorge was built as a tail race to sluice gravel and sand in hope of finding gold in the 1850's. The kids rock hopped up and down the small stream before the inevitable fall occurred with Jessica taking a dip into the cold water.
On our drive out to the orienteering on Saturday, we passed what has to be the coolest letterbox in Australia - a water drop! The Oceania Long Distance Champs saw us return to the famous Kangaroo Crossing and boy were we all in for a very long day. It all began with a 2.7km walk to the start on a warm spring morning! Katy maintained her 4th place, while the rest of us managed to be in the top 10 for our respective age groups but were a long way down on time.
Sunday was the Oceania Middle Distance Champs on a new map located on the outskirts of Beechworth. It was a mixed bag of results for us - Katy decided she'd had enough of orienteering and didn't start, Andy has a better run with a 5th, Ella made a big mistake and placed 12th while I DNF'd. Turns out that I'd somehow managed to miss a control and only realised when someone asked me what happened a few hours after I'd finished! So that wrapped up the national orienteering carnival for another year.
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