Bennelong Northside Orienteers

The coal dust has finally settled and we can now all reflect on our adventures at the Coalfields Classic! It was a great suite of orienteering events over the weekend in the Newcastle-Hunter region and being both a State League and National Orienteering League weekend the crowds were both numerous and talented!

The weekend kicked off with a Saturday morning sprint event around the Newcastle University campus. The campus provided a maze of different buildings with tricky stairs to navigate and many gardens to avoid. With a gully running through the middle of the campus the course was split in to three main areas with footbridges providing the best way to join them up without climbing the contours. Bennelong Northside fronted with a contingent of 8 ready to battle the students and their backpacks around the campus.

Bennelong has again done well in the MetrO League, winning two of our three divisions. The course had easier navigation than the first round at Cecil Hills, being mostly around buildings and across open parkland. To compensate, the distances were increased and this favoured the faster runners with some exceptional times being recorded. Thanks again to our new members we were able to fill all of our teams even with Gordon being out due to injury and the Bluetts taking on the ACT champs in Canberra.

		Division B
		Loss	Bennelong Northside	26	Garingal Molochs	29
		Division C
		Win!	Bennelong Northside	35	Garingal Skinks	20
		Division D
		Win!	Bennelong Northside	40	Southern Highlands	9

Here is a brief report on how our club members fared at the Australian 3 days in Queensland.

11 members traveled to Stanthorpe for the Easter 3 day carnival. This is traditionally the biggest orienteering event of the year. There was good news and bad news.

Summer Series is over! Fortunately there are a number of winter events to keep us going, including MetrO League, Statue League, WHO's Cunning Running and a number of Come-And-Try-It events!

If you want to review who our top orienteers in SSS 2011/12 were, click read more. The results are all still here.

Bennelong has done very well in the first round of the MetrO League orienteering series, winning our matches in all three of three divisions. Thanks to some new members we were able to fill all of our teams and still had some reserves left to represent us in the Enter-on-Day courses.

		Division B
		Win!	Bennelong Northside	32	Big Foot	23
		Division C
		Win!	Bennelong Northside	38	Garingal Geckos	17
		Division D
		Win!	Bennelong Northside	30	Garingal Legless	TBD

Find out about Gordon's fundraising for the Fred Hollows Foundation in Coastrek 2012, Round 2 of the DuO Adventure series at West Sydney Regional Park, Fedor and Marina's Uluru adventure and what out club members would be doing if it weren't for orienteering! Head to the Blueprint page to check it out!

The MetrO League is a series of six Sunday orienteering events in the Sydney area. The league sees four divisions of teams competing against each other, with points awarded based on individual runners times. Being closer to home and shorter, these events are a great gateway for Summer Series competitors who are keen to give bushy orienteering a taste. Controls are often not quite on the tracks, and you can often make better time if you head direct between controls instead of using trails. The are four divisions all of similar navigational difficulty, with division 1 being the longest course and division 4 the shortest.

Starts this weekend!

Bennelong Northside and Garingal Orienteers will be conducting a four week course during February/March. The course will cater for absolute beginners through to orienteers with some experience looking to progress to Moderate level bush orienteering this year.

The date for the 38th Great NOSH Footrace has been announced as Sunday 3rd June 2012. Stay tuned for more event information and entry details in April!