Second long qualification race

Trevor and I were both grateful for a late start time, which meant that we could plan to sleep in. We were awake and up  before our alarm ( but the alarm was set for 9.15, so that was still a good sleep in)

The weatherman had suggested dry weather, but when we looked out of the window it was wet again!

When we arrived we found that the finish chute had been changed a little to avoid the holes from yesterday

new finish chute on the left

Some of the paths were looking a bit the worse for wear.

The run was not as marshy as the previous day, and the marshes were not as wet-except the one at the end which was up to thigh high deep for some runners as they came across towards the last control.   I messed up control 4 ( used the wrong drinks control as my attack point and ended up too far south) and 7 a little (missed the high point and had to reorientate off of the parallel banks of cliffs, to the north east)  and needed to re orientate, but at no time was I so badly lost as on the previous day.

Sadly the rain persisted until about 1pm, with small breaks. This mean that the assembly area was, once again, a sea of umbrellas, tents, and backpacks and chairs covered in whatever way people could find.

my backpack ( yellow cover) -my cover is over mine and Trevor's pack

 View of part of the arena in a sunny break

Because I had an earlier start  I actually managed to see Trevor coming in the finish chute in his Aussie shirt and meet him at the final drink station.

We stopped to change, eat some food

And take a quick snapshot of some Aussies congregating near the welcome banner

Before catching our shuttle bus back once more to the Ullevi stadium , picking up the car and heading home to wash our soggy clothes and de-clog our shoes, socks and gaiters once more.

Neither of us had realized that there were hot showers available at the event. We might take advantage of them on Saturday after our runs, before we rush for the plane.

We think we have a workable plan for getting to the event on Saturday... once again we are relying on public transport.  So we need to find our way to a new parking spot, find a new tram stop  (  and tram going in the right direction) and get to the event (900 m walk) for Trevor to walk the 2700m to his start -which will probably be close to 9 am . Definite start times will be put on line some time today.

We need to do the house cleaning as much as possible tonight to allow for this very early exit tomorrow morning as we won't be back again once we leave for the event.

Boggy long qualification-day 1

Our apologies for lack of pictures today-but the truth is that it was just too wet to be taking out a camera or iPhone.

We took advantage of the shuttle bus system, parking in the familiar car park from the first day when we registered. This is easy to recognize because it is very close to the big soccer stadium with a rounded profile. Even we are now able to pick the stadium, but for the second time I thought we were approaching from the north, rather than from the east.  Luckily Trevor was more on the ball.

Having parked,  we just needed to walk up to the edge of the stadium and hop on to the next bus-15 minutes or so later we were being dropped off about 500 metres from the arena in the pouring rain.

Picture 3000 orienteers trying to make a spot for themselves in drenching downpour.  Poor Bo had to wait for one of the latest starts,  but needed to be there for Kirsten's start just after 9 am.  This  meant that he faced about 4 hours of standing in pouring rain before he could run.

There was no break in the rain for the first hour and a half-so most of us were forced to brave the elements and head off to our starts through the deluge. By the time we were at our start getting wet was no longer a problem as we couldn't get much wetter.

My map for today

My apologies for the crumpled and speckled map-it is not looking too bad actually considering the many times it was on the ground or underwater.

As expected it was pretty hard for us to navigate in this type of terrain, despite a good lesson at the model event yesterday, so we were both slow and careful, and still managed to getting somewhat out of touch with the map at times. 

Even the 250m long finish chute contained sections where you could put a foot in the wrong spot and go up to your knee in the mud! It certainly made for some spectacular spills for those observing the fun. That was nothing to the marshes on the map, which were an absolute delight of cold, muddy water as we splashed across them searching for our elusive controls.

Our results will be added to those of tomorrow's run to decide who runs in which final but we expect that there is no way we will be making the A final. That is fine, as there is a very long walk to the start of the A final as well as a harder course-and judging by the tiredness of our legs right now, we will have had quite enough by then. 

Our current results are looking like this:

As soon as we had finished we abandoned our post in the forest and headed back to the shuttle bus, and our car, making a beeline for a hot shower.

Now the rain has stopped,  the sun is shining and our shoes are drying out as best they can, along with our backpacks on the front deck, while our clothes rotate in the dryer, having undergone a much needed wash. Even if there is no more rain, we can expect to look almost as bad when we finish tomorrow as the marshes will no doubt still be marshy and the water will be in evidence everywhere.

Looking down towards my feet after we got home. Note the brown speckled appearance up to my knees from the marshy mud. Our shoes may never be the same again.  

Luckily we both have starts after 12 tomorrow, so we might be able to have a bit of a sleep in before we head to the event. I'm praying for sunny weather, as the event is enjoyed so much more if everyone is not busy just keeping as dry as they can. 

The practice of marshes ( long model event and Volvos)

Today was a rest day.  ( well....sort of)

We had a lovely sleep in till about 8am-much needed.

Then car pooled to the model event for the long races. This was held in a park area which borders the botanical gardens and we were treated to views of many trees that we hadn't seen before... but that's not all.

Our course today at the model event

The map for the model event gave us a choice of controls to find,  and we stayed with Bo and Kirsten which was very helpful.  We took some route choices between controls that would help us to understand the mapping and hopefully help us in the next few days.

This is the part of the map that we used. Our start was at the triangle. 

We travelled to 40, 37, 31, 44, 43 and 38 in just over 4 km and took almost 2 hours! 

Our first  leg was almost directly up the hill and over from the start

The yellow line shows our approximate course as remembered by us now. The first lesson in cutting up the hill was that the rock is very slippery.  Much of what we expected to be mapped as bare rock  is not mapped-and it often is shown as open scattered ( yellow and white splotches) .  Bare rock has to be very open and appears to be only on the tops of the ridges-although we did find some mapped on a slope also.
The marshes -both linear and wider have different vegetation-and the colour helps to identify them.  The larger marshes with the unbroken blue lines have what looks like very thick moss -but you may sink in to it- making running difficult.

There are a lot  of rocks not shown on the map due to their size-lower than 1m .

The marsh crossing between 37 and 31 was an interesting experience- it looks somewhat yellow on the ground -so you can pick it through the trees, but when you walk on it it is like a thick layer of foam-until you break through. At one stage my weight was too much for the surface and I went in up to my knee. I was possibly lucky not to lose my shoe in  the smelly slime beneath.
The single pair of orienteering pants which I brought are in the wash again tonight due to this incident. -the lesson is that this route choice can be used-but will not be a fast option.

Shoes as we finished the model event today... yuk! I am not sure that they will be dry by tomorrow.

We found this model event quite tiring, but also quite instructive. Definitely worth doing. 

Once we had dried off and changed our clothes we once again followed the instructions of the GPS towards he Volvo museum, stopping on the way for a meal of the day lunch -which was a huge workers lunch at a cafe in the local industrial area. We couldn't believe the serving sizes. We had the largest yiros we had ever had, and 2 of the others had pizzas the size of a large pizza plus a bit. All for 75 SEK ( about 12 dollars in Australian money) All of us left food on our plates.

Then off to a riveting visit to the Volvo Museum, where we admired the many examples of cars through the ages, boat engines, trucks, buses, etc that Volvo make. There was also a good display about the Volvo ocean race and the Volvo golf tournament. 

 Volvo car made of lego

Volvo tractor

This sign amused me-we've seen lots of farts on our visit here- but this was the first toppfart
Personally I think Trevor managed one like this the other night.

Had to take this photo for my brother in law Daryl -the Gibson collector. 

And so another day completes as we sit down to baked potatoes together for dinner. 

Sprint Finals

Today we took the easy way out and hitched a lift with Bo, Kirsten and Magnus to the parking area. Much less stressful. We followed the same pattern as yesterday-catching the bus to the event centre after a short walk from our parking spot, and the ferry home at a more sedate pace once the pressure was off.

The arena was the same as the previous day,  but the finish chute entered from the opposite direction.   This had necessitated the erection of an overpass for the spectators to use. The final control was clearly going to be a granite boulder sculpture.

Overpass over the final control and finish chute

The final control

Final control from above! 

As it was currently a beautiful day ( as promised) we relaxed in the spare hour before the courses started along with others and slowly prepared ourselves for the runs ahead.

Trevor,  Magnus, Kirsten and Bo preparing in their own ways.

The arena was so much more pleasant in the sunshine, and the grass was already dry enough to sit down on, without soaking in the moisture. The flags flew beautifully in the sunshine and everyone was enjoying the change in weather.

You can see the finish chute which is taped to divide A final runners ( coming in the left side of the chute)  and the others on the right side.  Runners in the top 10 of the A final had numbered bibs. 

I headed to my start ( only a short distance of 250m today) and started in clear skies, but shortly after that the skies opened up and I finished soaked to the skin. The course itself was fine except for the 3rd control which I made a meal of-getting quite bamboozled on virtually the only bush control in the entire course. It doesn't make me feel more confident for the days to come. Tomorrow we will go to the model event for the long events and try to getting our head around the mapping over here ( and  not to panic)

Our results were pretty usual for us -down towards the bottom of the list at 54th ( out of 77 potential runners) for Trevor and  Erica 47th out of 59 potential starters.

In the worsened weather we were glad that we had a change of clothes and shoes with us, and also happy to skip the  presentation ceremony and take the ferry home towards our car park -once again feeling very exhausted.  We are still waking early with the sun-and going to bed late ( also sun related) which is creating a bit of a sleep deficit I think.

We took the  opportunity to admire the maritime display and then opera house as we strolled back to our car.

Opera house-the design is influenced by the harbour surrounding it.

Tomorrow will be less pressure again as we walk around the model event site at our own pace. The weather is again maybe not going to be the best. 

Sprint qualification Gothenburg

4 chutes showing the ages to use each one
enter here at your appointed time.
Take your control descriptions
stand by your map ( in shelves under a long counter)
At the appointed time take your map and follow the tape to the start triangle.
no talking through any of this at all !

Despite my many misgivings we arrived at the event arena today about one and a half hours before we needed to be there.  Our major difficulty was finding our way to the parking spot which we had chosen- which involved one way roads not indicated on our map in the relatively busy city centre and also our inability to tell the gps where we wanted to be due to no name it would accept. We spent a short time traveling along a tram track following a bus and wondering if we should be there or not. We traveled the final step of the journey on a bus virtually full of orienteers.  I'm not sure how that will go tomorrow on a weekday.

The event was held at Eriksberg,  which is an old port area, now refurbished with many blocks of new apartments and also an old engineering works which is now a conference centre.

The arena had a large area of grass , but was fairly small overall.  People found whatever space they could to sit or stand. A long narrow pond only a few cm deep , about a metre wide and about 70 metres long divided the finish chute from the spectators. This finish chute was bordered on the other side by the flags of the nations who were competing .

The weather was quite wet and cold I thought, so we found shelter under a verandah with some Finnish people. Trevor had an early start and I had one of the later ones. The course involved a  walk of 1300 meters to the start and then a start procedure a little different from that usually seen in Australia.

Start area showing four lanes of competitors- maybe 4 to 6 in each lane at each one minute start interval

The courses themselves were pretty simple,  winding in and out of the apartment buildings,  and some park areas.  Trevor and I are just too slow, but we both had clean runs. We both ended up 48th in our heats. Start times have just been released for the finals tomorrow. There will be A, B and some C finals depending on our qualification results. We are both in the B final.

Jenny Cas came 13th, and Blair T 23rd-which has put them both in the A finals. 

Jenny finishing her run with the canal in the background.

Once we were all finished we caught the ferry back to central Gothenburg, and our car parking area.the rain continued to fall on and off, so it was good getting home to warm showers after hours of mostly just standing around in the cold and wet. 

A more relaxed dinner was enjoyed including pot of tea, and we will head for bed soon.  Thanks for reading the orienteering blog-and apologies to those who are not interested in this part of the trip. I'm afraid the next few days may well be pretty  much only orienteering related as we have something on each day up to and including the first of August.  Feel free to tune out to then if it suits you better. 

Love to all at home.  As you will have gathered , we are now sharing your lousy weather. Tomorrow should be 17 degrees but not wet, so overall that should be an improvement.  We will also have to be out there for less time, which will be good. 

Trollhätten

Trollhätten was an interesting spot.

 Apart from the bronze age burial mound, they have a very pretty city with many flowers in the public parks and the houses alike.

Through the city runs the river and canal, which is a major shipping channel. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the major boats passing through ( there were none today).

We did spend quite a bit of time at the series of 3 locks. There have been three different lock groups built to drop or raise the boats travelling along the canal over the last 200 years.  Remnants remain of both earlier versions. These have needed to be rebuilt over the years due to increasing sizes of boats and can  now take a 4000 ton boat ( enough to hold 135 trucks with trailers).

The lock area is very pretty, with beautiful flower strewn fields rolling down to the waters edge,  and we joined in a free tour to hear the history, then watched the traffic in the lock a little more, while we enjoyed the famous prawns on rolls at overlooking heritage listed local cafe.

There are some great vantage points around town to watch the river from, so we took in some scenic views, and then made sure we were in a good position for 3pm when a major water release of 300,000litres of water per second is released from the river upstream ( purely for tourists to view) - which turns an almost dry area of granite rock to the side of the main watercourse into a frothing, spectacular waterfall for about 10 minutes.   This section passes the 2 hydro electric stations for the town -one of which was the subject of our next tour.

With our education completed for the day we headed out of town and took some more of the roads less traveled. A fruitless search for a bottle of wine created some interesting detours and exchanges with strangers, but did not produce the goods. Apparently only quite large places are supplied with a shop which sells alcohol, and these are all owned by the government.  An excellent way to cut down on consumption you would think. It did mean that we drove the last few km on forest roads, which were very narrow and scenic. 

Our first airbnb accommodation-a room in the house of Ulf, is situated on the outskirts of a 50 person town about half a hour north west of Gothenburg. Amusingly, Ulf had decided that instead of a grill he would feed us shrimp for tea-so we have had two meals today of prawns on bread!!!  He is an ex-teacher who rents out his spare space now that the kids have left home, and saves the money to finance overseas travels. 

There are apparently Elk in the forest nearby,  but we failed to catch sight  of any when we went out for a stroll at about 9.15 pm.   We did actually see a sunset for the first time since arriving in Scandinavia though. 

I took lots of photos today, but sadly the Internet is letting us down, so you will have to make do with text. Hopefully will put up some catch up photos in the next few days.

For those who are interested-our first taste of orienteering in Sweden will start tomorrow, with the model event for the sprint. Sadly the weatherman says that this will coincide with rainy weather for most of the week  so we might have a lot of clothes washing and drying to do in the next few days. 

Fjallbacka

We still have very little internet access, so tonight's blog will be short and low on photos.

Yesterday we headed off on the back roads to Fjallbacka. On the way we passed many fields of hay with sudden granite protrusions.  They are so common here that often a road is cut through a granite hill only a few metres high and maybe 15 meters or so wide, instead of going around it.
The hay is reaped and wrapped in plastic of varying colours ( mostly white) which lie in the fields , giving the farmers more room in their barns for other uses.

Fjellbacka is boatie paradise, with many yachts from European countries crowded into the little harbour. Tourists from the boats walked the streets along with those who had braved the narrow roads in the town.

Fjellbacka harbour

As you can see from the photo above there is a huge granite monolith overshadowing  this town and you can climb up to the top and go for quite a reasonable walk on the top. There are even small lakes up there. Some of the signs showed an orienteering map-complete with legend, scale and contour intervals noted, so we felt right at home.   We drove to the top, where we could find a park for longer than half an hour, then walked down , had lunch and walked back up again.

Then we were off along the pretty scenic roads to Trollhatten, where we booked into a bit of a posh hotel and ate the dinner I spoke about last night.

Interestingly enough, they did not tell us that we were just a few hundred metres from a bronze age burial mound ( which we came across by accident this morning)-the tourist bureau also did not mention it!!!  Maybe such things are not so interesting for people from Europe.

Haby to Tröllhatten

It is a very busy harbour at the height
of Summer

It is late and we are heading to bed, but just wanted all to know that we are safe and well in Trollhatten.
We had a great day visiting Fjallbacka village, walking on the top of a huge granite boulder, travelling on some of the back roads to Trollhatten and exploring the town with Gota Canal.
Sightseeing day tomorrow.

Fjallbacka from the top of a rock with many islands lying off shore