The event was held near Mt. Werong, slightly southwest of a town called Oberon, in the Blue Mountains National Park. It's a very rugged and remote area. The planners were hanging up the targets the weekend before, and it was snowing then (with accumulation). It was still cold for the event, but with heavy drizzle rather than snow. So everything was wet, muddy, and cold. Although normally I prefer to camp the night before these events to avoid car fatigue from driving up on the day, in this case, I'm glad I didn't camp.
As this was a championship event, the allotted time was 24 hours (12 pm - 12 pm; but there was a 15 hour version offered). Once we arrived and registered, the remaining time was spent preparing: laminating the maps, studying the course, scarfing down some food and water, and idle chit-chat. Since we were not moving much, I was wearing all my layers to keep warm. I was grateful to have my raincoat that I bought spur-of-the-moment at REI before coming to Australia.
Once the event kicked off and we began moving, layers got shed within an hour. We got a lot of the low point targets nearby, then headed east for the higher point targets in much more difficult terrain. By hitting the difficult terrain early before you are worn out, you can score higher. The lower point targets don't require as much navigational or physical skill, so you can pursue those in zombie mode.
The difficult terrain certainly didn't disappoint. It was very tough, made moreso by the rain and thick fog. The creeks in these areas not only had water in them, but also stinging nettle -- loads of them. For the uninitiated, Australia's stinging plants are notorious. The leaves have thousands of stingers on them which are like tiny hypodermic needles. They puncture the skin at the slightest touch. The affected area will have recurrent stinging sensations followed by numbness for up to a month afterwards. The worst is the stinging tree. Stinging nettle is not as bad. In my case, the numbness only lasted about a day or so. The nettles compounded the difficulty in this area, because the ridges were very steep, and your instinct would have you grab things as you climbed out of the creeks. But you couldn't grab anything, because there was this nettle all around!
The difficulty didn't stop once out of the creeks. The ridges themselves were like giant piles of loose rock, covered with the debris of a living forest (fallen trees, tree branches, bark). Combined with the steepness, it was often slow going in these parts. On the positive side, since the terrain was so well defined, it made for easier night time navigation (whereas flatter terrain can be more confusing at night). The fog got thicker through the night. We had to be extra careful with navigation, and checked our bearings every 200-400 meters or so.
We continued with no breaks until we reached the all night cafe (a pit stop in the middle of the course) at 4:30 a.m. We warmed up on soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot tea, and a roaring fire, and ended up resting for about an hour. The sun was starting to come up as we headed off again.
Our route took us back the the start (so we could assess our condition and decide if we had time to get more targets), and we got another six or so targets along the way. Finally, as we were down to the last two before reaching the start, my blisters were really starting to bug me. So we wrapped up the final two targets and checked in, having another hour and a half to spare before the end of the event. Our score was 1330 points (the winning team had just over 1800 points, so we wouldn't have caught them if we had stayed out on the course longer).
The stinging nettles and overall soreness was gone within a day, but the blisters have taken a few days to heal. I'm ready for the Australian Championships in March 2010!
No comments:
Post a Comment