NSW Rogaining Association

"Your Guide to Rogaining in NSW"

Information given to entrants to this event.

The event will be held entirely within the Blue Mountains National Park, and this will offer YOU some interesting logistical challenges. These being :-

  1. A National Park car access fee, currently $7.50 unless you have a NPWS annual permit, and
  2. An access gate that will be closed from 6:00pm until 8:00am.

The options that are available (in Organiser preference) include :-

  1. arrive before 6:00pm, pay an entry fee (or use your permit) and drive to the hash house.
  2. arrive any time, park outside the gate, and walk to the hash house, or
  3. arrive between 7:00pm and 11 :OOpm, park outside the gate, and get an event organised car shuttle to the hash house.

If the $7.50 sounds just too much, perhaps you could try car pooling!

To help you decide your fate :-

  • maps will be available from 6:00pm
  • the hash house is approx 4 kilometres from the gate (there are 2 steep downhill and one steep up hill sections)
  • the shuttle will run on the half hour between 7:00pm and 1 1:00pm (plus
    once after midnight for stragglers)

For those wanting to use public transport, there is a regular train service a further 1 kilometre from the gate.

Overnight "camping fees" will be paid out of your entry fee.


One of the reports published in the September 1997 Newsletter ...

"Preparedness is not a prerequisite for a Rogainer"

As a morning person, I must admit that the idea of starting a 12 hour event at midnight seems a little unnatural to me. It might as well be a 24 hour event since you've got to stay up all night anyway. (But then that's probably the idea.) This year's up side­ down event almost didn't happen. Fortunately it was revived on the "spur of the moment" and a reasonable turn out showed up on the night at Euroka clearing near Glenbrook.

About a quarter of the entries were bush­ walkers from the University of New South Wales, who demonstrated that prepared­ ness is not a prerequisite for a Rogainer. They successfully organised several teams and entries in the last half an hour before the eve nt. Admittedly, I've done the same thing myself. When we went to the Rogaine "somewhere near Oberon", (i.e. Mt Werong) we were completing entry forms as everyone else were starting.

Upon hearing that the Rogaine would be in Glenbrook, I was initially quite excited since it would be my first Rogaine in an area that I already knew. Any benefit was purely in the mind, since we soon found that a kilometer of scrub takes just as long to bash through, regardless of the fact that you know the name of the creek on the other side.

I formed a team with my brother Greg who was going for his first Rogaine. I wanted to introduce him to the pleasures of the event. Unfortunately for him, he was still had the left overs of a sore throat with him. Unfortunately for me, I picked it up so on after­ wards and lost my voice for half a week.

After scanning the course map, we aban­ doned the plan of attack that I usually take, which is "go for the 100." In this case, the hundred was to the south at the Nepean lookout. Instead, we settled for "lets get the two 90's" which were in the northern corners of the course. One being at Mt Portal lookout which gave a nice view over the city lights through the night and the other 90 in the north west of the course, across the creek from Glenbrook.

On starting out, we made our way to Mt Portal, collecting the controls onthe way without too much hassle. At this stage the mind and body were still fresh -in a relative sense at least. Most controls here were by the roads, and a short bearing took us to the 50 point control. The only one that gave any trouble should've been the easiest of the lot. We actually missed control 10. After a quick look around for it the control was still eluding us, and out of arro­ gance or impatience I opted to leave it behind, "it's only 10 points". This is something that you always regret at the end of the day when you think how much better your score would look with those few more points.

From Mt Portal, we made our way to the Glenbrook causeway, making a sidetrip to the 70 point control to the north. The little bit of extra effort to climb the hill on the Glenbrook side quickly paid itself off in saving time that would have been spent negotiating the route along the creek.

To get to the second 90 point control it was necessary to leave the tracks and start testing the night navigation. This was at about 4 in the morning. It was a bit unfortunate that the time that required the most concentration was also the time that the body most wanted to go to sleep.

From the second 90 control we made our way towards the road near Red Hands Cave and the water drop there. From here on the plan was to just collect the controls on or near(ish) to the road as we made our general way back to the hash house. Although the sun was now up and we were awake again, we weren't really ready to go off on any full assaults on tricky ridge traverses, valley crossings or marathon runs to get the big points. The route we took us part way down the Red Hands road, then crossing to the main road and along Bennetts Ridge towards the hash house.

The 50 point control just south of the hash house proved to be a littlemore troublesome than expected. Some time was lost as we earched every rock and bush in the gully that was parallel and adjacent to the one that actually had the control.

On the way back we quickly looked for and bandoned the 20 point control. Time was starting to run short, and after a late experi­ ence in the last Rogaine at Bargo, finishing on time was one of the main objectives for this occasion.

From here it was a stroll down the hill to the finish, with plentiful supplies of food and the promise of a good night's sleep coming up.

Matt Chamberlain


For all information about this event, contact  ...

Graeme Cooper
phone: 02 6772 3584
email:   webmastewebmaster@nswrogaining.org


 

For documents relating to this and other event see the "Event Archives"


Who could enter?

Like all NSWRA rogaines, anyone could enter. You had to make up a team of between 2 and 5 people. If you were under 14 years of age on the day of the event you had to have an adult in your team.