The Party Has Arrived report – Louise Carver & Rebeka Pople

If this country is not a rogainers heaven, it sure is very close. What an event!!! The country was stunning and the weather mild. We travelled to waterfalls, waterholes, granite slabs and features, along shady cattle pads and rolling spurs with awesome views.

In our course design we were realistically looking at travelling 3 .5 to 4km/hr where we would be covering 30-36km in 9 hours if all went to plan. On studying the map, we decided that the SW corner looked fast and open. Why not get a few quick ones to get our eyes in and help our confidence.

By the time we started ascending the ridge at 37, we were warmed up and all systems go. We had chosen the same path as the Woody Willy’s and no matter what we tried we couldn’t shake them. We were blessed with great walking country, waterfalls, and granite slabs. By the time we reached the waterfall at 87, we finally parted company, as they headed east and we headed north to 69. At last we were on our own. We proceeded north east to hit the road and headed up to the radar at 79. We were travelling well and reached this point exactly half way through the allotted time. Here we passed Fat Adam having lunch and enjoying the view .We then embarked on clearing the north east section of the course. The vegetation was a little tougher initially, but once we gathered 93, 96, giving 17 a miss, the going got nice again. We ran into Star Factor at 82 and played cat and mouse with them for a while.

Initially on inspection we thought the south east section of the map was hilly, but still it presented itself with some nice spurs to follow. We arrived at 95 with a little over an hour to go, so we played it safe and decided to head home and proceeded to 65, 46, and then 18. We made it to hash with 15 mins to spare.

Nine hours seemed to fly by due to the quality of the country we traversed. Chris White placed his controls in awesome locations, which highlighted the many great features of the area. The only slight detraction was a little bit of spear grass.
Great course, great country.
Congratulations Chris!!!