The Carnival that Never Will Be - Day 1-4

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

We're back in St Helens having just competed in the forth event that comprises the remains of the twice cancelled Australian Orienteering Championships Carnival.

Day 1 was held in Launceston - and after originally having the role of IOF Event Adviser (i.e. Fun Police),  after the cancellation I was able to slide into a more hands on role and help with getting the event off the ground. Despite not having visited any of the control sites in real life before the day, the event went off without a hitch, and the 100 Tasmanians and 50 or so brave (and stubborn) interstate competitors enjoyed themselves in beautiful weather.

Day 2 was the Tasmanian Middle Distance Championships. I had a steady run which was just enough to win my class. Once again the weather was fantastic and the location by the river near Avoca was delightful.

Day 3 was a 45 minute score event near St Helens. On the start line I cajoled JoM into running it with me so we had a fun time making up the course as we went along and only being a bit late back at the end.

Day 4, today, was a sprint event around the foreshore of Bicheno. I have always loved this area - it's just so spectacular. Once again a steady run proved to be enough to win my course by 15 seconds over Clare. 

We're staying in an Airbnb place within walking distance from the shops at St Helens. It's pretty new and we've been checking it out for things we would and wouldn't do with our own holiday house. One thing I'd certainly do would be to provide a big enough dining table with chairs for the number of guests in the house plus a few more. I'd also provide a saucepan large enough to cook pasta (or rice) for the total number of guests the place has capacity to host. Having said that, this place has lots of features I'd like to copy as well like the delightfully soft carpet and nice looking vinyl flooring.

Tonight we went around to Denny and Robin's own rental in Steiglitz for dinner. The Flemings are up here to bike ride and explore the area, so we had an impromptu almost-family-dinner with Paul and Dani too.  It was a fun night and I became the slightly-disputed Bananagrams champion of the world.

 We've got two more days of orienteering then a couple of days of relaxing before we head back to Hobart.