By Becca Lunnon (right) with Emily Panietz (left)
As a relative novice to the art of rogaining, I naively felt superbly prepared for a crack at the Deddington Dilemma. The amazing and super- speedy elite, Bernard and Sara, had generously just shown us the ropes on a 24hr rogaine in Victoria.
We had everything to practice, a beautiful part of the state to do it in and all the enthusiasm required to make a long, hot day on the feet seem like fun.
We were optimistically eager to complete two big loops, one southern and one northern, separated by the road. Surely we could cover at least 50 kilometres. One laughs at that now! We quickly learnt neither of us could move as fast in the heat, the mapped ‘open’ ground was sometimes brutally scrubby, and that even when it wasn’t it could be covered in ankle breaking scree, fallen wood or other obstacles. Very early on we knew we were only going to get through 2/3 of what we’d set out to do. Fortunately the course was well balanced and it didn’t matter too much which part we had to drop so we spent little time reconsidering our route and just let timing dictate our retreat to the hash house.
We cursed the heat as we carried ridiculous amounts of water and lay in all the creeks we crossed that had any water in them. We enjoyed a mix of easily navigable controls but were also put in our place when we failed to take appropriate care on terrain with more subtle features. Our feel for the map became more nuanced and we made better decisions as the hours slipped by. We were rewarded not only by the endorphin rush of each new control found, but the views from the hills and valleys as we duck and wove our way across the map and every encounter with a new wombat - there were more than we’ve ever seen in a day!
Night time navigation proved a little challenging, and we sure felt scrutinised by all the beady little eyes gleaming in the light of our torches. We shortened our bearings, chose as strong features as we could and lengthened our estimated times for distance covered. We got stuck in regrowth scrub at one point, and later got totally geographically challenged. We took to hurdling numerous freshly fallen gums on a plantation road that seemed to go in the right direction and eventually reoriented us. The frogs came to our aid here, and made navigating to our next control, a water hole, something best done by ear. The sheep just stared silently. In the end we chickened out and hobbled the road, deciding the risk of one more control wasn’t worth the potential penalty. Besides, it was time to be blown away by the delicious gourmet offerings of dinner and to share experiences with other teams in the fire and moon light.