Australasian Rogaining Championship 2025

On our drive up we noted that the mountains looked lovely but the vegetation was rather thick for walking. However Long Plains proved to be what they are named after, long pastures (it looked easy walking whilst driving through) surrounded by relatively low-lying hills covered with gum trees. Perfect rogaining country.

We met David Baldwin (one of the setters) on entering the still sparsely populated campground and a couple of disgruntled horse people leaving.

The Hearnden’s were already set up having arrived the night before. On David’s advice we set out after lunch to the Coolamine Homestead. Amazingly neat and beautifully reconstructed. A very isolated but gorgeous location. Nearby were the Cooleman Gorge and caves. Would very much like to revisit this spot and do the whole gorge walk one day.

We arrived back from our afternoon jaunt in time to greet Paul & Des, who camped by us and later, Jenny & Trent who arrived by bus.

Saturday

A coolish morning giving me some hope that we could do the event rather than just some nighttime training that I had been envisioning along the way.

Soon it was 9am and we got to see the map, 1:25000 scale with 5 metre contours, it was a large map but not quite the tablecloth I was expecting.

There were lots and lots of controls, David dislikes making the course doable as he feels it makes planning too easy, as you just join the dots without considering point value. He likes to make a route choice a challenge for all teams.

The HH was near the edge of the map, making a circle an obvious choice. I immediately discounted the big hills through the middle, even though that’s where some big points were, but they didn’t appear any closer than those at the outer reaches so we both concurred on circumnavigating the map. Going clockwise seemed the smartest option, getting some hilly bits during the day and relatively smaller hills at night, apart from one steep range, and the flattish western side for the Sunday morning. Also this route provided plenty of cop outs, which were proven to be necessary. I think if we were 10 years younger and oh so much fitter we might have managed it. Our plan was approx. 65k, which was in keeping with our average Rogaining distance however the heat (sweat was pouring off me on the climb to our first control) and the fact the Craig and I were arguing over route choice, both compromising so hence taking worst route, did not put me in the best mind space. And I think mind space is the most important factor in completing a Rogaine.

We followed a ridge top to our second control and there was a shady tree, so I opted to have a sit down. It was here that Craig saw the dog, quite large. I only saw some ears and was rather sceptic. Not a common wildlife sight. Upon getting up I discovered that my backside was covered in prickles and that some had penetrated my trousers, so a quick check to see no-one was coming and I pulled them down to rid myself of them. As we went on I found I had missed a few so shoved my hand down my pants trying to locate those elusive few, only to discover a team had come up right behind us. God knows what they were thinking.

After that exceedingly slow start we were on our way again and found the next few controls without mishap, The sun had found a cloud and we were in trees providing some shade. There were a few tracks to provide some easy navigation but you had to go quite some distance to reach them so we generally opted to go straight line through the quite tough/fight scrub.

It was always a relief to hit the open plains, there were several of these valleys scattered around the map, but often they would have boggy tufty grassy mossy bits to slow you down and it was then quite a relief to get away from them.

We were quite behind schedule so opted to drop going to a water station, a good km out of our way, no point value and we still had plenty of water. 

Around 5 pm Craig got a serious leg cramp and we had to stop for a while. After that we were ready to pull the pin and just take a middle track back to the HH. Our problem here was that there were relatively low points to collect along the way unless you climbed the big hills and there was no water. This was the clincher. I gave Craig a magnesium gel and we continued on our course, not to be competitive, but that was the closest way to water, dropping a few further out controls. We crossed a stream at dusk where we could replenish our supplies, using the water purification tablets handed out at the start. Craig thinks he saw a platypus in the stream, so we thought the water would be pretty good. The sun was going down but the heat stayed. It was ridiculously humid and it was not long before we were feeling drained again. Luckily we passed over several streams and I was able to dip my hankie in the water and wash my face, hands etc. very refreshing.

A bit after 2am we finally hit the water station and after replenishing our water supplies I gratefully grabbed an apple and banana but was too tired to eat them. I unwound my space blanket and spread it out on a convenient grassy patch and lay down. Craig just went to sleep on the grass. Luckily the magnesium gel did the trick and his cramping had not continued but we were both exhausted. After about 20 mins the cold started seeping in and I put on my gloves and jacket and had revived enough to eat the fruit. Wow, I felt much better but could not face the pasties and fruit cake I had brought along.

We were just about ready to leave when Trent & Jenny joined us. The discussion was whether to go to 107, a bit over a kilometre with a 200m high climb to a spur or follow the road to a 40 pointer up a creek line. I didn’t want to undo the good of a break by starting with a big climb, over some very scrappy ground so we opted for the creek. This proved to be as crappy as you can get but we had the entertainment of listening to Trent & Jenny getting stuck on the wrong side of the creek and their horrendous time getting out of it. Lots of groaning going on.

They were moving along a lot faster than us and we only met up with them again when we crossed paths around 10am.

The morning was lovely and the terrain was a little bit friendlier until we were on the final leg back to the HH. Upon leaving this last control we noted the line of teams heading up a hill not in line with the HH and deduced that they were collecting an extra 20 pointer but we were not with it and just straight lined to HH. This meant going through the most challenging boggy stuff, finding ourselves in knee deep sludge and hoping not to lose my shoes in it. It also smelled foul but at least it was cooling, as the sun already was biting. I think that we were meeting those same teams that we saw going the other way who were now coming into the HH, our track was so slow. One amusing sight was a team of 2 young men who were coming from the opposite direction with the hope of collecting the 50 pointer but one stopped at the edge of the bog and refused to go in whilst the other just plunged through. He got a couple of metres before he was on his backside and managed to crawl out again. They didn’t get the 50 pointer.

We got back with about half an hour to spare but I was completely shattered and due to our slow progress had no illusions of being competitive. Had I realised that that extra 20 pointer would have given us a 3rd placing in the supervets I’m sure I would have been there in a shot. As it turned out I was thoroughly surprised we won the mixed ultra vet class again. I am glad because we forgot to get the trophy engraved last year so now we will have the chance to correct this oversight.

We had a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon then got up to have dinner before trying to go back to sleep around 9pm. This was when the storm hit, and what a beauty it was - thunder, lightning and the most buffeting winds along with torrential rain. It did not last very long but gee, if we had that the night before, it would have been a disaster.

I think the site chosen was challenging and terrain quite varied. Coming from SA it’s always lovely to cross creeks with flowing water. It was unfortunate that it was about 10 degrees too hot.

It’s a pity the HH was not more central but this did not affect us (those staying out), it may have made planning a bit more difficult for those coming in and doing 2 loops.

The controls were well placed and provided several route options i.e  Do we straight line (up and over), approach from the left or right, or go down to the track and back up?

My only real criticism was that the water drops did not have any point value, nor were they necessarily at expected route crossings. A control description would also have been handy as they were not necessarily visible at night from the tracks, or at least a marker on the track to indicate that they were there. Shanti told us she saw one team collecting water from a stream and they were only a hundred or so metres away from the water station, they obviously had missed it. When we did get to ours I really appreciated the fruit.

Whilst on the topic of water, it was lovely to be able to collect it from the streams, the only other time I have done this was at the World Champs in Finland.