Event report: SOL weekend

The 2024 WA State Orienteering League (SOL) started with two events on the same weekend: a sprint on the Saturday, followed by a middle distance bush event on the Sunday. Both events, held under blue skies and timed perfectly between wintry showers, provided challenge and excitement for both seasoned orienteers and newcomers alike.

NavDash 6: Wanneroo Secondary College

Saturday June 15^th saw orienteering at Wanneroo Secondary College for the first time. The map was a tight school campus, with plenty of twists and turns and impassable walls to keep people on their toes, and a map flip on some courses. Fortunately, we had perfect weather throughout the event and pack up.

Winning times were up a fraction, possibly because of more stairs than at most similar events, but the college is well worth another visit.

Thanks, as always, go to Melinda and Rosalie for taking care of the admin side of things. Thanks to Graham Braid for all the preparation, suggesting the venue, mapping the school, designing the courses, placing out controls, and managing the start. Thanks also to the band of KO control collectors (done in about 10 minutes) and to Ken Brownlie for controlling. Finally, a huge thank you to the helpful staff at Wanneroo Secondary College for allowing us to access this new area.

Results can be found on Eventor, and routes on Livelox.

Bush 6: Peterdine

Sunday's Middle Distance SOL event at Peterdine was well received and blessed with sunshine. Setters Jiri Vales and Veronika Kubinova set some imaginative courses. The H1 and H2 both had sections of butterfly legs, returning to a common control. To mix things up both these courses had the maps split into "odd" or "even" combinations, each going a different order through the butterfly loops. One runner commented “I saw lots more runners than I would normally on an H1, but had no way of knowing where they were going!”. To make the H1 map more readable it consisted of one A4 map with two A5 sized map flips on the reverse!

For those who take life at a slower pace, the comments were also very positive for the H3, H4, M and Easy. The courses were set on the eastern part of Peterdine in the area used for last year's Australian Relays, with plenty of open running and almost no dense bush to fight through.

Our thanks go to the setters and all the other volunteers from LOST. Jan Fletcher was the Organiser and Eddie Plummer was the Controller. John and Janine Taylor were toilet towers, Ian Fletcher helped run the Easy start and Moreen Cox helped with instruction. In addition, to collect the 65 controls, we had Mark, Neve and Quinn Lommers, Tony Simpkins, Jennifer Binns, Helen Bailey, Anthea Feaver, Nick Dale and Liisa Hirvonen.

Lastly, a shout out to the masochist of the day, Ricky Thackray, who completed the H1, H4, H3 and H2. Despite the beautiful surroundings, we understand that he didn’t fully appreciate the countryside around the remote point that only the H2 visited, as by then he was “a bit pooped”.

Results can be found on Eventor, and routes on Livelox.

SOL standings after these first two SOL events can be found on the SOL results page.
Not sure what it's all about? Read more about WA State Orienteering League.

Photos: Competitors on the Navdash course, by Christine Howitt; O-caravan at Peterdine, by Liisa Hirvonen.