Monday, March 31, 2008

Sob!!, another series is over.

Pork Pie is barely consolable, but wait, there's more! Yes, the addicts don't have to hang up the pencil just yet with the Autumn Evenings kicking off on Wednesday - still in the daylight to boot. So, more fun to come.

Back to our final. Peter Annetts had the reins at Woolwich on a beautiful Sydney evening, and a rather glorious and spectacular start/finish setting opposite the pub. The course looked daunting at first glance, with a good spread east and west, and a delicious tempter south in #24. Because of extensive landscape works, much of Clark's Point Park was fenced off, although Peter managed a loop around the old dock and the rather extravagantly luxurious four master (fascinating stuff) to take in a couple of thirty pointers in the bits remaining open.

Many of the 220 or so competitors (a great roll up, I think our biggest final ever) worked east first, despite the long return run for little change. Beginning to 30 and the aforesaid loop also had it's fans. Probably the hard ones were in the west, with #6 being our lonely pot candidate. It is an area with lots of dropping and re-climbing, so the puff meter was well and truly in evidence. The little known bush tracks to #23 had a few fooled, although the low route from #13 to 23 made sense if you had confidence. There were some great pot sites (20, 30, 21, 13, 24 etc) and the running was excellent here. A great venue, topped off with quite a bit of 'Pie Special' traffic to the pub after the presentation.

Big thanks to everyone for staying back to reward our stars, I think everyone appreciated the applause of their peers (and the enjoyable sight of late starter and chief results guru Dave McKenna, streaking home in front of the crowd! The final results should be up today, recording a couple of great last event contests (how about Tim Cox winning on the night, and jumping Malcolm Gledhill for third in the Legends, after Heiko forgot to write down 50 points!).

It has been a great year in so many ways. Michael Free a deserved winner of the overall points trophy, Michael Burton not missing a ton, the regular Wednesday threatening weather, Three new maps including the urban fun of Glebe, Pork Pie managing three scandalous issues! Ah, all part of the fun of the Sydney Summer Series.

We will return with a 25 event programme in early October, and should have details posted to the site by August. Meanwhile, enjoy the Autumn Evening programme, and the full calendar of bush orienteering events to come. I will probably publish reviews of the AE events, although there is no point score recording. Wednesday's opener should be a spectacular run, much like the fun of Ronnie's SSS event #1, with course setter Rod Eckles intent on showing off the city views as runners re engage the headlight on the Luna Park boardwalk. Don't miss it!

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