The hunt for next September and October

WORDS WARWICK WILLIAMS

Anyone who has set courses knows that setting a great course is vastly easier if you are setting on a great map. If you want to win course setter of the year, you start by putting your hand up to set on one of our better maps. Likewise, if you want to run a truly memorable Australian Championships carnival, the place to start is in assembling a series of maps that is going to give Victoria’s best course setters a chance to showcase their art. From the earliest planning for the 2022 Aussies, that is what we have had in mind.

There are other criteria to bear in mind too. It was decided early that the Central Highlands region offered the best combination of accessibility, accommodation and great orienteering. But it is hardly undiscovered! Going to the traditional heartland of forest orienteering in Victoria is a sound decision, but for a memorable carnival you want a bit of novelty too.

Time for a bit of exploration … Neil Barr and Ted van Geldermalsen took up the challenge of finding some new terrain.

Others joined the hunt, poking their noses into obscure corners of central Victoria, and we gradually flushed out some top quality new areas, as well as realising the merit of some of the long established maps in the area. Explore the new, rediscover the classics.

The first new area was not a new discovery, rather it took the enthusiasm and experience of Warren Key to point out that the area offers all that is great in Victorian orienteering on a single map. Granite, spur/gully and gold mining all occur on the Nuggety Range at Maldon, and the willing cooperation of a local land owner with a paddock full of granite has only made it better. This map will test orienteers adaptability, and will be a test of strength on the longer courses too. A great venue for the Australian Long Distance Championships.

The next discovery was out of the blue. Patrick Jaffe and Frédéric Tranchand came back from Blackwood talking about a small but intense area of gold mining country. The area has a different character to other Victorian gold mining. Maybe the geology is different? I don’t know, but this is not just another mining map. And at the bottom of the slope is the beautiful Lerderderg River. This spot is truly new and truly challenging. But, and there is always a but, isn’t there? - in this case there were several buts! Firstly, Melbourne was behind a “ring of steel”. We needed to get our Technical Director on-site to make sure that he was convinced. It took 5 or six weeks before we could get Warren and Loki up to Blackwood to sniff the place out.

But (“but” no. 2), the land is in the Lerderderg State Park, and the management plan for the park (from way back in the 20th century) says no orienteering. David Jaffe and I hunted down the senior ranger for the area and set up a Zoom meeting. With assurances as to the nature of our activities, he was brought on board, but (that word again), he still had to bring his policy people from head office along. Fortunately he did, and we were able to add this special area to the program for 2022.

The Australian Sprint Championships venue was not a “discovery” at all, but somewhere that we had hoped to go orienteering for years. Salesian College at Sunbury occupies the old Rupertswood mansion and grounds, although there are many more buildings there now. The property is famous for the presentation in 1883 of “the ashes of Australian cricket” to English captain Ivo Bligh, and is known as the birthplace of the Ashes. The campus has a farm attached with many farm buildings, and will make a challenging and beautiful venue for the sprint.

So each of the three main championships will be on an enticing new map. So much for the new. What about rediscovering the classics?

We have selected a group of the finest existing maps in central Victoria to show off the best of Victorian orienteering and the lovely historic towns in the area. Focussing in turn on Daylesford, Kyneton and Castlemaine, and with an eye to maximising the spectator potential for each event, we will be revisiting the Musk Vale map, Mt Alexander, Wattle Gully (twice!) and joining the existing sprint maps of Kyneton Community Gardens and Sacred Heart College together. Mt Alexander was a bit of a challenge to find a good assembly area, but after a couple of false starts, we have landed the most spectacular arena you could want.

Which left us thinking that perhaps we needed to bulk out the first weekend a little bit. We had the Victorian Middle Distance Championships at Musk Vale on Saturday, and the Australian Middle Distance Championships at Blackwood on the Sunday. What to do? Well, we have slipped in an extra short course event on the Saturday afternoon in Daylesford on yet another new map. Starting in the bush, passing around the famous Lake Daylesford and finishing in central Daylesford. Another of Warren’s lateral thinking masterstrokes, this will bring our traditionally reclusive sport into full view.