EASTER 2021
Course setting for Easter 2020 2021 BY ANNA FITZGERALD (GOLDSEEKERS)
When we all signed up for course setting for Easter 2020 in late 2018 ..… there was no way we could have guessed that it wouldn’t be until April 2021 that we would be all done and dusted! What a time! Well now that many of you have run our courses, I thought it might be interesting to interview my fellow course setters, to give some insight into how they designed their courses and what impact the extra year might have had.
Prologue CSU Orange – Jean Baldwin What were the key factors you had in mind when planning your courses for Easter?
I jumped at the chance to set the Sprint courses at CSU. It is an area I know very well, having seen it develop from the old Orange Ag College when we lived on campus, having moved to Orange 30 years ago. We have seen it change through reinventions as University of New England, Sydney University and now Charles Sturt University (CSU).
A lot of building works have happened over the years with interesting shapes and lots of garden beds. This all gave a lot of opportunity to design some interesting courses. The added advantage of being on a hill meant lots of steps and ramps to give route choices. From when you first visited the area to when the event happened, were there many changes to the area?
Before Easter 2020 we were told that a large building for the new medical school was to be built in the centre of the campus. This created dilemmas for course setting but the very large hole in the ground with the safety fence around it was just something we had to live with in 2020. The building was due to be completed in November 2020 so we didn’t anticipate it being a problem when the 2020 Easter Carnival became 2021.
In early 2021 we contacted CSU to make sure everything was still OK for us to use the campus for Easter. At first the answer was definitely NO because of COVID restrictions. After some negotiations and assurances that we were all very responsible people, CSU eventually agreed to us holding the event there. Just one small snag – the medical building had been held up and was not yet completed – but it would be by Easter …… 8 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2021
We added the new building to the map, behind its safety fence, and updated the gardens around the campus, which had all grown profusely after wonderful rains in the preceding 12 months. There were some particularly odd-shaped garden beds near the new building which had us puzzled until we realized that they were part of a very clever track for wheelchairs which zig-zagged up a 5-metre climb, making it possible for students with a disability to enter the new medical building. The rains became a bit too enthusiastic in the month before the event and we were told we could not park in the paddock that had been selected for us, as it was far too wet. Also, the rain had held up building works, yet again, so the safety fence might still be there at Easter.
