Rogaining photos

This weekend I took part - solo - in the foot and mtb rogaines. Rogaining is an orienteering-type navigation event for pairs (my teammie was out with chest infection). The difference to orienteering is that instead of running from control to control in consecutive number order, you get a limited time period to score as many points as you can. The controls are spread all over the event area and each control is assigned a point score.

In this case I had 8hrs on Saturday (on foot) and 3hrs on Sunday (mtb) to play around the Mokobulaan plantation - just outside of Lydenburg.

Here are a bunch of photos from Saturday's foot event. In my next post I'll give you more of a technical look at the navigation options.

Travel companions before the start of Saturday's foot event. Friends, lovely weekend. Thank you. Wiehan, Lizelle and Alec.

Heading for my second control. Lovely topographical feature - clear to see on map and ground. I saw another pair coming in from the left. They had a really steep and gnarly route. I just trotted along a road and then easy along the spur. Navigation. Route choice. Ja.

Control down by the dam. This was my 3rd control. Jumping over the very little stream to get to the control I landed up thigh-deep in mud and water! The side of the stream gave way completely as I landed. It was squelchy all around here.

Hitting another control. Early morning still. Dirty face already.

Foresty control.

A forest control. I got here around 4hrs (halfway) and ate some snacks before a BIG uphill.

Green x shows where the next photo, looking up, was taken. That was a very steep and rocky descent. I'm glad I went down it rather than up!

Rocks, rocks, rocks! I chose well to take this one downhill. Next picture is taken from the bottom looking up. Green circle drawn around the control flag.

I was up there! The control was a bit higher up than where my finger is pointing.

Trying something new. Fresh, crunchy and tasty trail snacks.

This was the view at the top of the big uphill (Control 111, 70pts). Phew! I'd climbed up from lower than the road you can see middle right. Orange arrow shows the start/finish. I still had about three hours left and many more controls to locate before heading for 'home'.

The climb up to Control 111 (70pts, significant tree) was damn steep but the view over the eastern part of the plantation was well worth it. I've marked in the approximate locations of my final nine controls that I fetched on the way home. Blue W indicates a waterpoint (25l container of water - much needed by then). Orange X are the controls. The orange arrows show the location of controls not 'visible' i.e. behind hills. Green H is 'home' - the start/finish. Pink line mostly shows my route. See my next image of the map of this section. The map is orientated in the same direction as this photo.

Map of the area corresponding to the panoramic photo. Red X is about where I was standing to take the photo. Blue W is waterpoint. Controls are marked by the pink circles and labelled with a number. Green H is 'home'. The blue highlighter line... drawn quickly around a braai on Saturday night. That was my route. Scale is 1:35,000. The blue North lines (here they go diagonally from top right to bottom left) are, on the ground, 500m apart - to give you an idea of distance.