Winners Report – Team Woody Willies – 9 Hour

With members from each of the teams soon to represent the far north in XPD 2010 present the pace at the Real Hanndful 9 hour Rogaine on the Hann tableland was going to be fast. Maps were handed out the night before which allowed a bit of extra time to strategise. Initially ‘Woody Willies’ planned course had us trying to sweep the course however by halfway through the event we realised this was a bit unrealistic. Most teams tackled the course in a clockwise fashion with the main difference in route selection being at what stage to head to back to Andy Shepherd drive to collect the five central checkpoints.

Had it not been a competition you would have found most of the teams enjoying the spectacular scenery from one of the many lookouts or swimming in one of the beautiful pools along the creek between checkpoints 78 and 87. The cattle pads along many of the ridges and pleasant undergrowth through much of the area also meant that the walking was some of the best in the region.

For the first few hours we enjoyed the company of the girls in ‘The party has arrived’ before a bit of skinny dipping forced the girls to choose an alternate route. We chose to collect the middle checkpoints from 87 returning to the clockwise route via 58 and 69 which proved to be a good strategy because of the clear cattle pads along the two ridges.

Our last hour and a half became a bit frantic as we pushed for home with the lure of a few extra points on the way pulling us from the most obvious and sensible route. In the end those extra points gave us the margin we needed. In hindsight we wouldn’t have gone to the bottom south west as these points cost a lot of time and weren’t worth many points – but at this stage we were still hoping to sweep the course. We should also have read Chris’ very helpful course notes as they provided excellent information which was not much good to us after the event when we finally got around to reading them.

All in all an excellent event hosted by Chris and his family. Some great country, well placed checkpoints and very big thanks to Rogaining NQ and the property owners of Glen Russell Station.

Course Route:12-20-25-37-43-81-35-51-39-78-87-87-49-70-48-26-108-58-69-106-29-79-96-93-17-57-82-68-95-65-46-HH

Dave Wood and Brett Wilson