There were five daytime events between May and August 1974.
Four of the five events were set at John Forrest National Park (JFNP). All the events were on Sunday mornings around 9 am.
Event #1
On the 5th of May 1974 the first event was organized by Pat Murray and was located near the Park Road entrance. The JFNP map used was the same that was used the previous November and December. There was one course that was 4.2 km long with twelve controls. There was a master map that had the controls marked on it and orienteers would mark up their unmarked map during their competition time. There were map corrections. Advertising and promotion
of the event was done using the University of Western Australia Guild Broadsheet, the Silver Guilder editions 9 and 10.
Event #2
This occurred on the 26th of May 1974. Little is known about it except that the organizer, Peter Green, set courses on the JFNP map starting from the Gravel Pit. There is no other information about numbers of courses, number of controls and lengths of courses.
Event #3
This event was organized by Eric Isaachsen on the 8th of June 1974 from the JFNP picnic area. He set two courses. The A course was 4.2 km long with 11 controls and B course 2.2 km long with 8 controls. It was a particularly successful event with 76 people competing.
Sports results were usually published in the West Australian newspaper. Look at the results in the West. What Orienteering Association of WA? Somehow Aitken was able to include a publicity article describing what happened that day. By the way, the 8th of June was definitely a Saturday!!
Event #4 was set by a team comprising Steve Vinicombe, Peter Johns and Mark Sangster. The vetter for the event was Gary Aitken. Having teams like this increased the skilled individuals available to organize events and set courses. Two courses were set. The A course 4.6 km long with 10 controls and a B course 2.1 km long with 7 controls attracted 90 competitors. Maybe the fact that the courses started from near the JFNP Tavern may have been a factor in the increased attendance!
Pat Murray organized Event #5 on the 21st of July 1974 at the Somerville Pine Plantation (SPP). There were two courses set. The A course was 6.8 km long with 12 controls and the B course was 4.3 km long with 8 controls.
Vesty Stack was the A course winner but this seems unfair as Vesty assisted in the fieldwork of the SPP map!!
Photos: Left & right: newspaper clippings of the results of the first events. Below: SPP map. Click on the pictures to view larger images.
