Bathurst Sept 29 rest day -our house

Today a much needed rest day.

We thought it might be good to use the time to share about the place where we are staying.

This house is an airbnb place that we booked months ago. With 3 bedrooms and a decent amount of living space , along with laundry facilities we thought it  might fit our needs well.

They had said that it was close to Mt Panorama but we hadn't realised how close it was.  Our house is at the blue dot on the map below.

You can see the "supercheap" signage up the road from our front footpath

We have a lovely small backyard with space to sit, a bird feeder,  a BBQ and a lovely weeping pink blossomed tree at the side. The bright pink blossoms are stunning.

It's always hard to take inside pictures  I gave up on the bedrooms and bathroom.

It is the little things like a welcome note and bottle of wine, good quality kitchen gear like the kitchen aid mixer and good crockery that make a difference.

It's good to have a place to be warm and comfortable, a chance at a good sleep (never a strength of ours) and somewhere to wash up.

Bathurst Sept 28th relays and public race

We travelled the 25 min out from Bathurst to the West again today.

Parking at the flat campground at the top of the hill, we carried our gear down the hill for a bit over a km to an extremely scenic assembly area.  The distant views were delightful, but the numerous high hills and deep gullies worried us all. There was going to be plenty of climb on these courses. It was a much chillier day today and we were keen to get out there and keep warm, but there was business to be completed first.

The kids were out first,  and we were just in time for the mass start, with the first runners for the 30 or so teams all starting at the same time. (All Aussie states, plus NZ) The kids were all dressed up in their warpaint.  SA were resplendant with crows socks, red, yellow and blue hair, and the junior boys even had coloured streamers on their backs! Then we waited , and slowly we started to spot the runners appearing on the distant slope, and then making their way up the cruelly steep track to the spectator control.

As we all screamed at our favourites to urge them on, they had to just keep on running past the crowd and out into yet more hills and gullies on the last loop before they reappeared to the cheers of their supporters, and the team mates who were waiting to be tagged and to take their turn in the forest.

After our disappointing series of mis punches yesterday, the SA kids were under strict instructions to dib as well as float above the SI units-and we didn't have any mispunches.

The selection of relay teams can be a tricky thing, and Meredith Norman was an unlucky one today, left out due to recent poorer results, and included in a composite team running against her SA team mates.  With plenty to prove she ripped around her course in 36.35, leaving all of our senior girls runners in the official SA team behind her. Her team came 5th.

The official senior girls team came 7th (6th Aussie team) .

Waiting to run in behind Alyce

Junior boys had 2 teams.  The first and official SA team were beaten by the 2nd team, with Toby also running a great time, and Ethan showing, once again that he can hold his own, with yet another great time.

Junior girls ended up 4th Aussies and 6th overall,  with Joanna, once again,  the fastest of them.

Our senior boys were the only ones to make the podium, with 2nd Aussie team (3rd overall) , despite Angus having a dodgy hamstring.

Once the excitement of the relays was over, we had our own runs on the hilly terrain. Trev was 11th out of 40 and I was 7th of 42 runners.

Then we walked back up the hill again to the parking and enjoyed a well earned up of tea.

Cheeky photographer in the crowd

Kids doing what kids do. 

Here are our maps

Trev's map

Erica's map

Bathurst Sept 27th-school and public sprints

Today we visited one of the colleges (All Saints) in Bathurst and ran sprint courses before watching the schools kids do the same.

Sadly, some of our most promising kids (Angus, Dante and Jack) mispunched, bringing the SA team score down. Meredith was 3rd Australian in the senior girls and Joanna 2nd Australian in Junior girls.

It was great to see some of our juniors coming through well and confidently.

Trevor and I both enjoyed fairly good runs, with Trevor ending up 7th out of 49 and Erica 3rd of 44 runners.

Here are some pictures to give you a bit of an idea of what it was like.

We stayed around to watch the presentations for the day-held in the hot , bright sunlight.  We were very proud of our team who sat waiting patiently on the stands while the organizers got themselves ready and other teams got themselves sorted. 

Bathurst. Tuesday-schools individal competition and day 1 of public races

Today we travelled out to the Roseburg state forest (on the way to Cowra) to watch our SA schools team race.
It was an absolute treat to see them shine on the Aussie stage, with some of them really putting it together well today and taking out great placings. Joanna G was the stand out in first place for junior girls, but there were lots of other terrific results for Dante, Ethan, Jack, Abigail, Ana, Emily and  Angus, who all made top 10 today as well.

The terrain was spur/gully with granite outcrops, fairly poor visibility due to close trees and lots of subtle contours and trip hazards.

Unfortunately we missed the earlier finishers, so here are the ones we caught on film. Some were so fast that we only got a blur, or the back of them.

Other shots of the day

Trevor and I then went out on courses ourselves. My result looked really good, probably due to no real errors, because I didn't think I was moving very fast (5th out of 48).  Trev was 39 out of 49 runners on his course.

Trev's course

Erica's course

After we finished up we decided to take the alternative route home along forest tracks, through the Roseburg, Pennsylvania and Neville forests. This nearly brought us undone , as we followed the GPS instructions down some quite unused tracks, and at one stage had to decide whether to continue over a fallen tree, or turn back.

In the end the decision to continue turned out to be a good one, and we saw some different parts of the local countryside on the way home as we followed that crazy pink line on our screen.

Tonight we will catch  up with Maurice, who used to orienteer in SA, but currently resides in ACT.