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Wednesday 13 November 2013

Rock On

I'm getting that great feeling one gets when there is a minter orienteering event coming up in the weekend. Canterbury Champs will be memorable this year with a terrific line up of maps and some good competition. I am particularly looking forward to the battle between Chris Forne and the young guns. Nick Hann and Tim Robertson will be out to take the Fornicator down. It will be difficult, paint Forne blue and you could put him straight onto Pandora as one of the Na'vi - no need for a fancy avatar. He was born with the heart of a hippopotamus and the giggle of a giraffe.

The middle race will be another new format... a chasing start sprint event on the rocks of Kura Tawhiti. The ancient, sacred site of the Waitaha, the home of rock climbers and the often contemplated scenic vista in the Castle Hill Basin. In this place of zen, mastery of subconscious focus will be needed to navigate the fine line between caution and haste in a pressurised environment. The demons are inside, outside and around the corner.



Expect Course Planners Matt Scott and Lara Prince to err on the technical side. It would be rude not to. Watch for the pink lines that symbolise passages (read caves), and the gray areas of the map...this is generally not flat bare rock, rather rock you can run up onto. Black lines on one side mean that you can't get up that way...

Sprint rules in theory apply, which means that you shouldn't cross unpassable symbols, at Nationals though this rule was not enforced, so I say just go for it if you can, every second counts.

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