Some Bush Training opportunities during ‘lockdown

Bush training

Some Bush Training opportunities during ‘lockdown’

WORDS RUTH GODDARD PHOTOS L INCOLN PATERSON

After Easter was cancelled, many bush events in Victoria and interstate were crossed off the calendar. For Melbournites there were plenty of park/street events with courses to be done in your own time using MapRun. How could the bush orienteers be catered for – a question on Debbie Dodd’s mind. She started to promote the idea of ‘training events’ which were permitted under quarantine restrictions. Over the year three events were held in June, and four events in November. Dandenong Ranges Orienteering Club and Yarra Valley Orienteering Club were the chief organisers along with one event by the visiting coach, Frederic Tranchand and MFR’s Patrick Jaffe.

Four low key COVID safe events were organised by YVOC during 2020.

The first event was in June after a month or so of quarantine. The green wedge of four parks in Panton Hill offers real bush near Melbourne and furthermore it has a history of gold mining. Although an orienteering map had been made it had limited use with a small parking area. An event with less than 30 participants does not require a permit so it was possible to organise an event there at short notice. To be sure that numbers were controlled, entry was via Eventor with a morning session of 20 people, and afternoon of 20.

During the following months, a new function was programmed into Eventor to limit numbers entering an event. The event was classified as ‘training’; no entry fee was required, and courses were self-timed. Two line courses (5km and 3km) were printed on the map with 20 controls on the map marked by paper tags. The result was a relaxed experience of bush orienteering. Some comments at the finish were: ‘can I still remember what to do?’ ‘I did not know this (piece of bush) was here’ ‘Serious terrain’ ‘You had to be right at the control to see the yellow tape’ ‘I like the lack of competition’. There were some newcomers who had some training and parents helped their children, so the events lived up to their name. Training of new course setters and a mapper also took place.

In November there were two events with novice course setters under guidance. Daniel wanted to revisit Panton Hill and start from the opposite end of the map. From his “armchair” on the other side of Melbourne where the lockdown confined him, he learnt about the use of Condes and design of a hard and moderate course. He realised the difficulty of setting a moderate course – ‘Setting the moderate course made me muddled. Anything goes for the hard course, the easy course basically follows the paths, but the moderate course... it needs a fine balance between being challenging and achievable, while still being enjoyable.’ He also set an easy course which suited some of the younger participants. ‘An easy course was on offer for the children to grow their confidence and enjoyment in the bush’. He also gained an appreciation of visiting the map and seeing what ‘white’, and ‘pale green’ looked like in real life. Many areas near Melbourne are far less runnable than they appear on the map. In his words: ‘We all would’ve had a fight against the vegetation if I hadn’t visited the map the week before the training.’ And, speaking on the value of course setting he said, ‘If you want to improve your orienteering skills give course setting a go’.

Lincoln lives near Jumping Creek Park in Warrandyte. He was interested in both mapping the area and setting courses there, and has an Apple Mac computer. He uses the free OpenOrienteering Mapper 0.9.3 software. Fieldwork was done in daily visits to the park during his permitted exercise time. ‘Building a map from scratch was an interesting learning exercise for me during lockdown. Jumping Creek is comfortably within my 5 km radius, but the one-hour time limit for exercise was initially a challenge for fieldwork. When the limit became two hours things became much easier.’

He relates “Georeferencing was obtained by reading in a contour map from https://mapshare.vic.gov.au/vicplan/ as a GeoTIFF. Nearmap images were also georeferenced, so they conveniently snapped into position. The courses were set using the map as a template and a different symbol set.” He became interested in the history: ‘Stane Brae was originally a grazing and farming property that was purchased by the government in 1982 and incorporated into the Warrandyte State Park in 1987. The homestead was burnt to the ground in 1983, but some stables and dairy outbuildings remain.’

The fourth event was course setting by Ted (a very experienced course planner) using the permanent controls in Brimbank Park. “We used the sprint version of the Brimbank Park map. This is at 1:5,000 which stays in the developed part of the park southeast of the river. Therefore, to get the required distance for the “longer” course, there were many direction changes a bit like a sprint event. Also, there are some uncrossable areas that required route choice decisions. I would be more inclined to call it middle distance style. And the shorter course was more like “join the dots”. We also offered a score course which was simply a map showing all 33 permanent course controls.” MapRun was used for this course so the map and course can be used again.

We learnt some points from these events:

- Any bit of bush (or land) once mapped, can be used for useful orienteering.

- Novice coursesetters and mappers require guidance so that it is a pleasant experience for all – the mapper and the participants.

- Key ingredients for these courses were up to date maps and thought about the course design and control placement. Line courses give the opportunity to consider difficulty and length.

Training events organised by DROC – Debbie Dodd/Ainslie Cummins

When it became clear that most of our bush orienteering program was not going to happen during 2020, we started looking at other options. Even when restrictions were lifted, permits were impossible to obtain in time. However, if we could meet conditions for permit free events, we could make use of our permanent courses, give some new course setters a chance to learn, and provide some fun and enjoyment for cooped-up orienteers.

Yarra Valley provided me with the Cardinia Reservoir permanent course map, and I “joined the dots” to create two line courses, for a June training session. I had my fingers crossed, not having been able to check the courses in person, but the feedback was all positive on the day.

It was a long wait until November, but Ruth and I put together a four week program of Sunday training. In addition to the three sessions described by Ruth, we decided to test out Police Paddocks, which has only previously been used for schools competitions. Ainslie Cummins offered to scout out control locations and do the field checking, as she could get there on her bike within travel restrictions, while I pulled together the line courses at home, using Condes. We added an extra long, challenging course. Ainslie takes up the story:

Lucas at Panton Hill. His hand was in a plaster cast and he used the plastic bag to protect it from the rain, rather than his map!

“My setting of controls in Police Paddocks grew out of me setting a lot of Streeto courses, to get exercise with a purpose during lockdown. I had never been to a bush orienteering training day and previously set training courses for rogaining, where experienced trainers go out with novices. I tried to put controls on navigationally challenging natural features which had to be identified from reading contour lines, rather than obvious manmade objects. This proved to be difficult in Police Paddocks, as there is a large area of flat swampland, parallel uncrossable creeks, and hills with few definite spur gully features. This meant some controls were on very subtle features like a broad gully and a very small spur. When I did use manmade objects I tried to select things like concrete slabs and ruins which were not immediately evident in the field, so you had to accurately navigate to the feature. I discovered the subtle differences in course setting rules between orienteering and rogaining. I did not know that you could not set a control on a feature that is not represented on the map with an actual symbol, or understand the intricacies of control descriptions used in orienteering - but I have learnt.

It took quite a few weeks and many visits to the site. Due to the much greater use of mountain bikes during lockdown, there were quite a lot of unmapped tracks. The rapid growth of blackberries, especially in the two weeks immediately before the event, considerably changed the dense vegetation marked on the map. Debbie was unaware of this, and placed a couple of legs right through some very scratchy areas, resulting in some bloodied legs. I did not realize until I went out to hang the tapes, when it was too late to make changes, but I did take a pair of secateurs to prune the worst of them.

In hanging the tapes I wanted to make sure the competitors actually navigated right to the location marked on the map, so I did not use large pieces of tape and did not put them all at eye level. In retrospect this made it difficult to locate some of the controls, especially for the inexperienced competitors. Overall it was a good learning experience for me and a good use of my time during Covid lockdown.”

Ainslie and I worked together well, but what we missed was having a third person able to physically check the course lengths, which were too long given the unanticipated seasonal vegetation. The limits placed on all of us by travel restrictions and lockdowns made the task of course planning, even for low key events, even more of a challenge – but the enthusiasm and excitement of the participants, who just couldn’t wait to get outside with a map and compass, made it all worthwhile. We were able to use some small areas with limited parking, which would otherwise never get used; and we promoted the permanent courses which clubs have worked so hard to establish and maintain. We have more people with course planning and mapping skills – and most importantly, we actually did some bush orienteering in metro Melbourne during 2020!

David and Lincoln (at Jumping Creek) decided that the combination of everyone’s rusty post-lockdown technical skills, a particularly vague spur-gully map and a cold, dark midwinter’s night probably wasn’t the best idea. So instead, a massstart loops course was offered during the day, with ten different variations offered to keep people on their toes. It was most people’s first time out orienteering in proper bush terrain for many months and ended up being a very memorable and enjoyable day out in the forest.