DROC partnered with fellow Victorian orienteering club, Melbourne Forest Racers, to deliver a superb winter long weekend of top class orienteering in gold mining terrain at Creswick. Saturday featured the final in the Victorian Autumn Series, and the courses by Dion Keech mixed up some physical spur gully with tricky erosion features. DROC members turned out in force with 23 competitors – a record for a non-Melbourne event! We had the most podium finishers, with wins to Sally Barlow, Ian Dodd and Annie Gruby; second places to Sarah and Sammy Love; and thirds to Simon Rouse, Karen Strachan, Debbie Dodd and Annie Gruby. Other strong performers were Damian Spencer, Sarah Davies, and James Love.
Sunday was the Victorian Middle Distance Champs, the first time in many years that DROC has organised an individual forest Championship event. It went off without a hitch! Courses were set by Vic Sedunary, and they certainly tested everyone’s technical navigation skills as he took us into the hardest sections of the map. More great results, with wins to Martin Steer, Janine Steer, Sarah Love, Sammy Love and Debbie Dodd; second places to Damian Spencer, Helen Walpole, Amber Louw and Sarah Davies, and third places to Ian Davies, Pam King, Joel Crothers and Wayne Love.
We rounded out the weekend with the Bah Humbug Sprint, which saw us back in the same gold mining, but at a larger scale of 1:5000, on courses set by Roch Prendergast. A win on course 2 capped off a great weekend for Ian Dodd, while James Love was a very fast 4th on the same course.
Our thanks to the three course planners, along with event advisor Warwick Williams, who all did an anazing job; and to the dedicated teams from both clubs who worked tirelessly and cheerfully for 3 days to put on what we think was the best weekend in Victoria!
Click here for more about the weekend, and photos from the Middle Distance Champs presentations.
