orienteering
w00t for NavShield.. even though we sucked .. it was heaps good fun.. and we started to get the hang of it towards the end. I think if i had more time to plan stuff.. and a team which was a bit less diverse i could put in a pretty good effort at this thing. ne of u faithful readers out there wanna join my team next year?

on the first night we arrived late and couldnt register till morning.. a rather annoying set back. cos it meant we didnt get the night time to plan our route or set up our maps.. but it wasnt that bad really. we pitched our tents among the small village of tents and cars that was called base camp, there were supposedly about 800 ppl there.. eep. when we got up in the morning, my tent was covered in ice!! apparently there was condensation on the tents.. and the sub zero overnite temperatures caused my tent to be frozen into a sort of icy shell =p

we ended up start a tad late, but in the end it didnt make too much difference... we headed off and in almsot no time we had found our first check point!! yay! .. now im thinking "this isnt so hard"... but onto the next check point... this army guy from another team told us it was jsut along the ridge, pretty simple .. fast forward 2 hours.. and we're walking around blindy looking for a "watercourse bend" .. and we have no idea whether its north, south, east or west... argh!! it was pretty embarassing actually.. but ill take the blame for that one since i thought we were about 1km NW of where we actually were =p

we decided to give up.. and head for a few check points which were worth bigger points.. headed due west hoping to come across a road.. unfortunately we found the wrong road and basically staggered around for a few more hours.. untill we happened across the right road by luck =p the rest of the day was pretty much a repeat of those events.. till i fsked up my ankle.. and then the sun went down while we were still about 2 hours away from the closest radio station. according to the UTS Outdoor adventure club fitness rating system, im rated at about 6.. out of a possible 8, which is pretty good.. unfortunately my ankles are rated at about 2.. and have a tendancy to cave in on me at any given moment. we ended up getting to the radio station at about 7pm (3 hours after dark).. that combined with the first check point gave us a total of 2 checkpoints in a day.. pretty pathetic =p

the campage was good as always =) i do so enjoy a good campfire .. toasting marshmallows.. and eating tinned spagetti =) it was rather freezing though.. and i should probably go and invest in a sleeping bag which is rated something more like -5 degrees or maybe less.. (or is that more).. must thank julia for keeping me warm.. even though i know she doesnt read this..

... the next day..
woke up feeling pretty shafted.. my ankle felt like id had had a giant rock lying on it all night. but the second day is a short day (finishes at 2pm) so we chirpily got up at 9am =p and headed out after swiping the campfire left by a previous group to cook our brekkie =) .. we were basically on fire the second day.. we decided not to try too hard.. and jsut head back to base camp.. but there were 3 checkpoints almost on the way back.. so we thought we'd at least look for them a lil bit. and we were lucky enuf to get all 3 of them. =) which is pretty good since we only got the one on day one (not including the radio point). they were all pretty easy ones, but it still feels good to find them considering the first day frustrations.

in the end we got 4 check points and 2 radio check points in total. not too bad for a first effort. we didnt realy wait around for the end of the show.. jsut packed up and left for home.. feeling rather exhausted.. but still quite happy =)