THE RETURN OF THE HIGH-O

from The Australian Orienteer – March 2022

MELBOURNE SPRINT WEEKEND

TRACY MARSH

The High-O had been a regular summer event in the NSW Snowy Mountains and Victorian Alps in the nineties and the Albury-Wodonga Orienteering Club (AWOC) brought the event back this summer as a three-day Orienteering event in the ski village of Dinner Plain in the Victorian Alps. The format changed from the traditional 2-day long-distance alpine Orienteering event. This year it was a smorgasbord of five events, for a bargain total entry fee of $50 and over 70 orienteers took part. I treated myself to the three events on the smorgasbord that didn’t require wheels, whereas my Finnish-Aussie race partner, Virpi Komulainen, treated herself to four races. The first event on 22 January was a Sprint race through Dinner Plain, won by Mace Neve and Ewan Shingler. It took us through the various ski chalets of Dinner Plain, across playgrounds, amongst snowgums and over skiruns. A MTBO race followed, that Virpi took part in on roller-skis, setting off like a true Flying Finn along the Great Alpine Road towards the first control before the terrain slowed her down a bit. The maps marked the location for our BBQ later that evening. Sunday’s third event was in the style of the traditional epic High-O race. Competitors needed to pair up, and the 16- and 19-year-old siblings Ewan and Nea Shingler showed endurance beyond their years to win the long-distance course. Unique control locations included the “stationary kangaroo” (a kangaroo skeleton). Event 4 was another MTBO race, that took racers out past the tent sites where we freecamped at JB Plain. Again we gathered for dinner after the day’s races, this time at the Dinner Plain Hotel.

Andrew Brown running into the last control on Event 1.

Map printed here at 70%

Monday’s fifth and final event was the Keen Relay. Leigh Privett explained how it would all work. The first leg runner would run a 2.8km Sprint around Dinner Plain, hand the map and SI stick to the second leg runner to run the 2.4km Sprint course on the flipside. The map was to be flipped again for both runners to run the final Sprint relay course together, shown in a different colour on side one of the map. But before setting off, we would self-handicap ourselves by lining ourselves up at the 0, +5, +10, +15 or +20 minute signs held up by the AWOC organisers, and make challenges to teams who were giving themselves too beneficial a handicap. The handicapping system worked well - Virpi and I ended up in a 3-way sprint finish. The maximum handicap wasn’t big enough to keep speedy juniors at bay though, with Ewan and Nea winning again. The High-O was even more fun than the ones I raced in from 1990 to 2000 around Falls Creek and Kiandra. Big thanks to Leigh Privett, Peter Mousley and all of AWOC for reviving the event. It was fantastic to see Hugh Cameron, the first organiser we met as we arrived, running the COVID check-in process. Despite becoming an octogenarian just the day before, and being retired from his Department of Education, OA presidency and IOF Council roles, he was on his feet helping to run the event from beginning to end. We hope the High-O is here to stay on the O-calendar. Perhaps there will be a roller-ski or Knockout Sprint race on next January’s smorgasbord menu!