Australian middle distance champs-Sunday 27th September

I'm writing this on Monday because we came home yesterday and were very very lazy- blog included. We were feeling every bit of our lack of fitness and lack of training after two days of challenging courses. They may have been only middle distance courses, but they have required more mind power and more fitness than we really had to offer (and have consequently been super enjoyable). As I said to someone yesterday-if I could spend every day of the rest of my life doing a course on these maps I would still have a lot to learn..Maybe I'm a slow learner, but they continue to give a challenge and it  is so different every time. There were certainly a few lessons to be had in today.

There were also some joys.  Seeing Joanna George win her course (after Abigail won the day before) was fantastic. Also seeing Max Grivell come 3rd and Jack Marshall come 5th in the M 12 was terrific. Although all of these are now part of the junior arrows, and not the darts I still consider them special and also see their great potential for future orienteering achievements. Eliza Grivell,  Emily Marshall and Ben Marshall also did really well, and apparently so did Jemima Lloyd (although we hadn't even known she was coming to the champs, and didn't see her-just saw the result later. )

Max came third!

A number of SA adults also did well-Adrian and Robin Uppill, Andrew Slattery, Tyson, Fern, and Olivia come to mind.

Trevor and I did not have outstanding results and didn't expect to. (36th out of 43 and 22nd out of 35 respectively) on a day which favored good navigators. It only took one error wasting a few minutes to see many a good orienteer dropping down the results list and finishing the day wondering why on earth they did what they did. 

We stayed till the end and despite this neither Trev or I had the sense to go and reclaim  our maps (which were handed in as we finished as the last start had not yet been completed).  Thus we returned home empty handed. I was lucky that Al is a M 60 and did the same course as I did, so I have a photo of his map to work my way through,  but Trev will have to wait till we get them back to go through his course again.  We sat in the spa last night  sipping our gin squash and talking our way through our course as best we could, but it wasn't as good as being able to see the map.

Despite my good intentions I failed to plan good attack points to all of my controls and particularly failed in good execution at number 10.  Debrief to follow. 

We had plenty of time to check out the final control for the day before Trev set out for his start. We were unsure how it would be mapped. Maybe as a mound, a pit or an earth bank in a u shape?

 In the end the map looked like this:

My whole map looked like this: ( thanks Zita)

From 9-10 I decided to take the road rather than having to cross through green and across the river. If I had done it well it could have worked well but...

First,  I got a bit confused and started thinking I was heading for 11 instead of 10.  Luckily I figured it out before I actually wasted any time.

This is what I think I ended up doing. In the middle it was really slow as I was confused and trying to figure it out.

So I got almost to the track bend that I was planning to use as my attack point for 11  before I realised that  should be heading for 10, not 11. My mind was dehydrating and showing it and the recent hill climb had not helped the matter.

I headed on to the dam and decided to  vaguely follow the contour along and around to the right to get to the control. I'm not sure how well I executed that part of the plan,  as I came across an injured orienteer, had a quick chat,  and headed off again (help was already on the way) in what was probably the wrong direction. I may have passed very close to my control at the time, but if I did, I certainly didn't see it. I continued on, and became aware that I was now unsure where I was. I remember seeing a creek with a control in it (not mine) and passing by the gully with steep sides shown just to the left and down from the 0 in the number 10.
At that stage I decided to do something positive and not waste any more time, and headed what I hoped was north to the track.

 As I came up to the road I was surprised to see it was such a big road and realised that it was the solid black road and the pine plantation on the other side was the edge of the map.
Looking to my right I spotted the end of the track going to the right and was mightily relieved. I headed for that, knowing that I should be able to see the drinks control on the track and confirm my position. Sure enough, there it was up ahead. I headed in again to my control and located it without difficulty.

Now why did I not continue on the track to the drinks control and use that as my attack point in the first place? I could have saved about 10 minutes and maybe ended up around 17th instead of 22nd.

Well, that is enough of a lesson for today. I hope you enjoyed my exploits.

Once I was back and changed I enjoyed taking some photos of some of the other SA orienteers and also some cute little kids out on courses being shadowed by parents. They had to be late finishers for me to catch them though,  because I had stayed out so long myself.

I particularly enjoyed taking some series of photos of runners coming into the last control.  This is my favourite.

That is orienteering in a nutshell.

Well, today is a rest day. Tomorrow we will be out there again having fun .

Victorian middle distance

We woke to a beautiful sunny  day with cloudless blue skies and crispy cool weather.
It was a great chance for a sleep in, after a night of tossing and turning.
The bruising on the foot has come out some more,but it is fine to walk on, so I'm going with the idea of strapping and hoping.
I will take the ice with me and be ready to RICE afterwards.
An exchange of messages this morning with Kate was a good reminder to me of what I need to focus on, and was good for me, because I've got nervous butterflies this  morning too, but I'm so excited to be heading out to a big event again too. How on earth did I develop in such a way that I enjoy this sport so much that I just can't wait to be out there?? I guess it is the combination of competition and puzzle that I love so much...if only I was a better runner ...☺
This is a part of the old version of today's map.  I'm sitting looking at it and trying to get y head in to what it will be like out there.   I  am picturing the bush in the white areas as scraggly gums which I can run around with some wood fallen on the ground and some uneven ground. I'm struggling with that area on the western side which is flatter. I'm owing that the Swedish experience with little dips and spurs will help us in this terrain.

The rest of the household are starting to rouse now-so I think it will be an eggs and bacon morning starting soon, and I've already got my Orienteering (O) bag packed and ready to go except for the ice and shoes. The pins are on my chest number so that I don't have to search for them later on. That's pretty much all I can do now except rehearse my control procedure and picture myself going through the motions of the start and then running over this terrain.

Today I will be focusing on planning from the control back..
what is the control on? (And where)
What is my   best attack point?
Break up small legs to get there and do them carefully
Keep in touch with the map at all times.
I will only check the control number on the way in to the circle as I know I won't remember it longer than that.

Post event debrief
Lesson for the day: stick to the plan and do not move from it.
On the one control where I had a bad  attack point I stuffed up and wasted about 15 minuses.  I'm not sure how many places this would have saved me and I don't really care.

The course for today (course 10-W50A)

Just while I am thinking of it-I had forgotten to check which course number my course was.  This is something which is worth knowing. I will write my courses on my start number so that I have them from now on. I had to line up and find the info at the start area.

We needed to park and walk to the assembly area.  There was a handy oval used for this purpose. 

In an unusual situation we actually had to walk past the track to the start on our way to the assembly area.

We also saw a huge area of gorse with yellow flowers which was a warning of the prickly green areas to come later.

There were only 4 toilets at the assembly area which meant a fair old line up and wait but I managed to get to the start area with about 12 minutes to spare.

8 to 9 was my nemesis leg that took me 22 minutes.  

I chose to go right around the open area (which has steep cliffs as I wanted to avoid the green on the other side of it.
I then chose to attack from the track  bend rather than going to the obvious high point opposite the control on the track. This meant that I went wrong and wasted a lot of time.

Eventually I went back to the track junction and navigated to the high point , then in to the Control without problems.

Anyway-tomorrow is another day, and we have to get to bed soon, so I will just give you a treat of a view of some of the other SA runners who were competing.

Chis Franklin, Geoff Dinning, Frank Tomas, Peter Kreminski, Al Sankauskas

Going to Ballarat

We've spent the last couple of days getting to Ballarat.

After the tearing  of sending Thom and Laura off

Last family photo

It has been good to focus on getting away again and to get the head back into orienteering.
We went out for a practice run at Lady Alice at Para Wirra on Wednesday and I hurt my foot, which has been a bit of an issue, but I am walking on it again without difficulty today,  so planning to run on it tomorrow with it strapped and hope that it will hold up. It is a bit bruised.

We drove to Bordertown last night and caught up with Barry and Bett. Barry has been quite sick lately and was looking very tired . He has lost a lot of weight in the sickness since we saw him last and this worried us some. Judith says he is better than he was 2 weeks ago.

We stayed at the sundowner Bordertown hotel (with the air conditioner running all night to block out the sound of the trucks and trains)

Today we drove on to wish Judith a happy birthday at Serviceton  including past some lovely crops of golden canola

And helped out a little with driving a mob of sheep across the highway and up the track a bit

before heading on to Ballarat and moving in to Harrowfield House where we will be staying for the next 10 days while the  orienteering champs are on.

The house is great (3 bedrooms, heating, washing machine and dryer) , and Zita and Al arrived an hour or so later and will share the house with us for some of the time. We had fun catching up with them, dropping in to the event centre to pick up our chest numbers and info, and doing the shopping , then sharing a late dinner together.

Tomorrow is the Victorian middle distance event on a complex gold mining map. We have all dropped into bed now to rest up, hopefully have a good sleep in, and have our minds in order for tomorrow.  Wish us luck.

Dubai to Adelaide-the end of the trip.

Written in Dubai- and then not posted due to lack of Internet access

We've had the laziest day of our entire holiday today. We slept in for ages and stayed in our room reading, chatting and hiding from the hot sun until it was time to check out just before 6 pm.

Then we booked our bags into the cloak room, paid our bill, and went in search of food in that extraordinary Dubai Mall.

After pizza and salad (we were surprised to hear both "silent night" and "Oh come all ye faithful" being piped through the mall as we ate, along with other more secular western and arabian sounding tunes) we made our way once again to the Dubai fountain and enjoyed two more fabulous displays of water and light set to music, which really are more like fireworks displays than anything else. One display was set to orchestral western music - sounding like horses galloping over prairies and involved high shots of water accompanying gunfire like drums in places, the other was an Arabian tune and the water fountains were like belly dancers, gyrating to the music and dancing in groups, and then in a line. It is amazing how the fountain reflects the music so well and is just so moving. If we had more nights here I would be trying to see this free display more.

Cup decoration in a coffee shop in the Dubai Mall

Reflectons in Dubai

More reflections in Dubai

We walked back to the hotel, reclaimed our bags and caught a cab to the airport early, missing the crowds and having a hassle free bag drop and no wait for security or passport checks. Once that was done we have had a shower, changed into our travelling clothes and read our books, had a bit of food and a cup of tea to keep us going, and now have only another couple of hours before we will be on board the plane. It's a pity about the 12.5 hours of flying time, but there is no way of avoiding that , so we are just gritting out teeth and praying for video screens that work, an empty seat in our row, good food, free alcohol and no crying babies.

We are very much looking forward to seeing our family and friends after so long away, and to sleeping in our own beds, and eating our own home cooked meals.

It has been a great holiday. We've seen a lot, learnt a lot and met some fantastic people. We wonder how we will view history after seeing so much evidence of earlier times. Australia is so devoid of that. In some ways it is a pity that the holiday comes to a close, but the time is right, and we are happy to be heading homeward.

Thom and Laura will be heading off very soon, and this is very much in our minds. It will be good to cross paths for a week or so, and spend some time together before they head away to start the next phase of their lives.

So I'm signing off from Dubai airport for the moment.See you on the other side.

Written 15/9/15 in the evening. 
We are home and settled in.
It has been wonderful to see our family and we are very much looking forward to gradually catching up with friends too.

The flight was too long and we each managed only a snatch of sleep , so we were very tired when we arrived in Adelaide, but after a few hours of catching up with Thom, Ben and Laura we headed for bed and had a good sleep. Today we felt no worse than after a bad nights sleep (which we are both well used to with our light sleeping habits)

I was lying awake at 2.30 am , and still awake at 4 am when the magpies started their carolling.  I have so missed that sound while I've been away, and it was wonderful to lie snuggled in my own comfy bed and listen to it this morning.

So now the clean up has started.  Washing, sorting and packing away is in hand, and some essential arrangements (like cutting our hair) have been made. Life is quickly settling back into a normal routine. It was great to shop today at my own supermarket where I know the location of foods, and to stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables at least to some extent, and to cook a meal at home again.

Thanks for all the support of our Facebook friends and blog followers while we have been away. I will aim to continue to blog on a less regular basis, but will refrain from a daily update of our activities unless I think it is noteworthy.

Feel free to continue to follow the blog at luvapuzzle.blogspot.com.au if you wish. It may well become more orienteering slanted as I settle back into Aussie life-especially with the upcoming national champs competition in the next few weeks. I will try to label the posts so that you know what you are in for, and can read only those which are of interest.

Cheers for now.

CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING AND A DANCING FOUNTAIN IN DUBAI

Yesterday was a very long day involving arriving in Dubai, getting to sleep at about 2.30 am,  sleeping till about 10.  We were up to meet Tim and Joanne for fruit and a cuppa before heading off to the Dubai Mall to explore.

The Dubai Mall is extraordinary . It contains a huge aquarium (3 storeys high)

Sorry for reflections. You might be able to make out the glass submarine top left of picture which is taking people on special viewing tours.   You can also dive in there, or go in a shark cage.

 and a man made waterfall with sculptured divers suspended in it, as well as hundreds and hundreds of shops. They even have a blue brontodiplodocus (dinosaur) skeleton in a whole souk area and more gold jewelry for sale than I have seen in one place before. The stall holders are really extra attentive and try to be helpful , but it is a bit overwhelming for me and I just want to run away and hide when they do that.

When you stand directly in front of the divers they appear to be falling down the waterfall 

Oh-I forgot about the full size  ice skating rink on one of the floors. !!!!!

So many expensive brands and expensive people in one place. 

After a few hours of stunned people-watching and shop browsing, and a very relaxing swim on a hot day , we headed off in the cooler evening balminess to the creek area where we boarded a dinner cruise and spent 3 hours with good food and wine,  cruising along and watching the water traffic and the buildings along the creekside. Another late night well worth it as totally enjoyable. 

Today we were allowed a bit of a sleep in till about 9.15 before getting up and heading off in a cab to the older part of town where we visited the sheik Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding.  Here we shared brunch with some local Muslims and other travellers, and had a chance to hear why they live as they do, and what they believe,  and to ask questions of a young lady and man. The brunch was delicious, I discovered that I don't mind Arabian coffee, (but Trevor didn't like it) and we learnt quite a bit .

We then continued on to the museum,  seeing what old Dubai was like, before heading home.

Later it was back to the mall for lunch and a little more shopping, a short rest and then dinner before we stepped outside to what appears to be a huge kidney shaped pool (maybe 300m long and 120 wide). Here, on the half hour from 6 pm there is an amazing water and light display and a fountain spouts beautiful  jets of water, lit from below, which move to the music like ballet dancers-amazingly beautiful and graceful. Quite moving. We liked it so much that we went and found icecream and came back to watch again. 

We walked back to the hotel admiring the tallest building in the world on display in a darkened sky with the  lit palm trees of the mall far below 

in time to send Tim and Joanne on their way to the airport. Tomorrow we will follow suit and fly home to Adelaide,  so this will be our last sleep in Dubai

They have been excellent travelling companions, and the mix of time together and apart has been about right.  It is really great to share a holiday with like minded friends and we count ourselves very fortunate to have been able to do it with them. 

Day 3 in London-visiting the Queen.

Today the queen becomes the longest serving British  monarch ever- and we thought we really should celebrate with her by visiting for a late lunch...Sadly she didn't get the memo,  but she let us come and see her house anyway. Although this is a very important day (it must be, because they have special souvenir editions of the Buckingham Palace guide produced for it) we opted to do a standard tour of the state rooms at the palace only.  This provided us with  more than enough gilt to last us for a lifetime. (A lot of it on the lavishly decorated ceilings). If I lived at Buckingham Palace (which I will never do) I would also be dying to get away to Balmoral -as the Queen is at the moment-and enjoy some basic beautiful countryside (and maybe some plainer buildings) than the fussy rooms at Buckingham Palace.   Like all over- opulent decoration in state buildings I couldn't help but feel that it is all quite unecessary, although quite interesting to have a peek at.  I found it very interesting to hear and see how they prepare for a state dinner-from invitations, to food, to table settings, to serving. Now I am pre-informed for when my time comes.
I'm sorry, the Queen did not allow any photos inside her palace, so I cannot share with you the wonders of her expensive paintings,  sculpture, opulent rooms, or the grandeur of the whole thing.

We finished off with an ice cream from milk produced by the royal cows at Windsor (at a royal price) as we sat in the royal gardens.(I was allowed to use the camera outside)

Prior to the visit to the palace we walked across to the Thames,  across the Lambeth bridge, visiting the garden next to the archbishop's residence (with lovely mosaic fountain designed by the local kids), then along the bank of the Thames,  enjoying the view of the famous old buildings.  We saw a tug pulling barges which reminded me of the past uses of the Thames, and that it is still not just a tourist river.

Travelling under the London Eye,  we then crossed back on the Golden Jubilee bridge and worked out way back via St James Park  (Where another very friendly squirrel had his eye on our lunchtime baguettes) to the palace.

After the visit we took a stroll through Belgravia (all magnolia coloured houses, and some lovely mews behind the fancy houses where the stables all used to be.

I'm putting this up early because we are heading out to a comedy club tonight to get our last little bit of London nightlife. Tomorrow we will spend a large component of our day on the plane to Dubai-so , Aussies, don't anticipate a breakfast edition of the blog tomorrow.  We will be dropping into bed in our hotel as soon as we arrive, and starting the whole jet lag thing.

See you on the other side.

London -day 2 Tuesday 8th September-Hyde Park, Harrods and JERSEY BOYS

Last night it was too late to write by the time we got home, but I thought I would quickly try to put down a bit of what was involved in our day.

After putting some clothes in to wash (sadly the domestic stuff is still required) we hit the road, walking to the bus stop and catching our beloved hop on, hop off bus again.
Happily it didn't cost much more to add a second day when we bought the ticket, so it's handy as we are now familiar with the route,  and how to use it.

We hopped off at Hyde Park, stopping to take a photo of the fancy entrance gates, before heading in to investigate the treats inside.

We enjoyed watching the many grey squirrels hopping across the lawns with their tails wafting gracefully behind them. Birds were also landing on people's hands-we saw what looked like a parrot, and a small bird like a honey eater which came to take the bread a bloke was trying to feed to a squirrel! Scared the crap out of him! He got what he hoped for as later we saw a squirrel actually walk up his leg to take some bread from him!

We walked part way through he park with its wonderfull flower beds and fountains and then  through the streets to Harrods, where we wondered at the store decorations, the wonderful smells, the variety of things available and the prices that people are prepared to pay, before succumbing to the urge and having a cup of tea (English breakfast no 14) there out of fine bone China.  It was very nice.

On the way out we went past the wine and expensive jewelry (Trev wouldn't let me look too much).

We headed back to Hyde Park a different way, and happened to come across a street name that required a picture.

Strolling through the park again we visited the Diana memorial fountain,  and decided that we would not like to be a part of the swimming club who swim in the very duck-pooey lake.  It is a beautiful spot though in the middle of this very busy city.

We found a temporary fountain that made us laugh as we went.

We hopped back on the bus,this time hopping off and walking in to Leicester square, where we did the touristy thing, and bought last minute discounted tickets to see Jersey Boys in the evening.

Then off to find some late lunch (with wine) before a visit to the national portrait gallery. Here we spent a happy couple of hours before they closed their doors at 6 pm,  giving us enough time to wander and find a good pub for a drink and dessert before the theatre.

The show started a bit slow , but warmed up nicely with some great performances of classics, but it was added to by the group of ladies next to Trev who were getting very emotionally involved, and the older couple next to me who were grooving and singing along to the music.  The man sitting next to me used to be in three bands and performed cover versions of many  of the songs performed.

We walked back home after the show through St James Park and the horse guards ground. We could have dropped in to 10 Downing street no worries, but we figured the prime minister was probably getting  his beauty sleep.

The weather was not too cold, and the fountain in the park was very pretty lit up at night, as were the lovely old buildings on the streets.

We slipped in our door and into our room as our housemates snuggled asleep in their beds-but they woke us anyway this morning. That's life when you opt to use air Bnb to stay less expensively in a central part of the city.

London

We had a long, long day doing the tourist thing .
We bought a ticket on the hop on  hop off bus and hopped on.
We found out that there are lots of taxis and red buses in London and that the traffic is lousy at times, and sometimes you don't get too far. This gave an excellent opportunity to watch the people.
We can see why the underground might be preferable.

We did manage to get taken to lots of places we have heard about or seen in movies and pictures but never seen in real life and to hear some history and interesting facts as we went without having to worry about where  how we were going to get there.

It was a relatively good day-grey in the morning,  but sunning up in the afternoon.

We hopped off to get lunch practically in the shade of Nelson's column (boy that is tall!) , hopped on again and travelled over the Thames to the Tower of London.  We were just in time to attach ourselves to the last free tour by a beefeater for the day (which was highly amusing and informative) . That left us with a little time to look at the crown jewels. I was surprised that this was a whole collection of items used for coronations and other ceremonies  not just the jewels in the crowns.

We basically left as they closed,  and used a river cruise to get back to Westminster area, where we took a bit of a closer look at the houses of parliament and Westminster Abbey before walking over the Westminster Bridge to find ourselves some tea.

By the time we had eaten some yummy Japanese noodles and rested for a while it was time to hop back on the bus for a night tour. It was getting chilly,  but we opted for the top deck again for the views. Two hours later we hopped off near Victoria station and took what is now becoming a fairly familiar route back to our lodgings,  basically falling into bed.

Today we are heading out again to see what we can see. Who knows what the day may hold.

Icecream and sunshine.

Today the sun  shone as we finished our tour of Wales (pronounced Way-ells).

It was the ideal opportunity to try the local icecream offerings as we stopped first at St David's,  and then at Tenby. They were good.

Soon after we left this morning we stopped by a little waterfall near a lovely old stone bridge. This gave us some chance to play with photos. This bit of the river is sometimes used for curricle races and also fly fishing, and the salmon jump up this waterfall sometimes.  There were no salmon or curricles visible today on the river,  but there was a curricle on the local pub wall which I grabbed a shot of.

We  arrived at St David's with enough time to have a good look at the cathedeal hidden in a hollow with its dramatic wooden ceiling and to explore some back lanes and have a cuppa.  As we were nearly out of time we discovered an ice cream parlor with a myriad of yummy flavours that looked really good, so we bought a Turkish delight.  Yum.

Lunch time was at Temby-and reminded me a little of the photos I've seen of Santorini. The clear sea came up to cliffsides which were terraced as much as possible.  Little terace houses in many colours lined the streets overlooking the  East facing beaches which actually  had sand (and some rocks) and were being well used in the sunny day.  We hardly recognized this place as being in Wales as the weather was just so different with the sun out.
Temby has a walled town also, and we walked in through the walls and found ourselves some really good fish for lunch and browsed the shops briefly before heading for the beach and cliff sides.

There is an island with a fort on it , and the tide had gone out, so we watched them hoist the Welsh flag and open for tours as Trev made short work of another icecream from the van on the beach and I enjoyed watching the typical beach day and the clear water. There is a portable jetty here and boat trips to a nearby island were doing a roaring business.

Then it was on to the motorway and heading for Cardiff,  where we said goodbye to our fellow travellers and Phil, our excellent tour leader. After a brief cuppa and loo stop with Tim and Joanne we headed for the railway station and caught the train out of town to Barry Island where our beds are tonight. This seems a little strange, but we couldn't find anything in town for a semi reasonable price due to rugby being on.

After checking in and relaxing a bit we walked to find some tea in the local town which is mostly made up of amusement arcades and fairground, but which also has a lovely promenade and beach. We just happened to catch sunset.

Tonight is our last night in Wales. Tomorrow night we will be in London again.