In conjunction with the 2023 Annual General Meeting, RT will be hosting a social event at the Legacy Park Savige Pavilion at the Queens Domain, on Friday 1st December. Come for a chat and perhaps even a debrief on the Midlands Muster event with other participants.

Start arriving at 5:30pm for a 6pm AGM start. The AGM will be brief.

RT will provide nibbles, wood fired pizzas and salads, as well as juice, wine and beer. For catering purposes, please rsvp to   by Tuesday 28th November. In accordance with rogaining tradition please bring your own plates, cups and cutlery.

The notice for the Annual General Meeting, and Extraordinary General Meeting to approve our revised constitution, can be viewed here.

A view from the setting team by Peter Tuft.

I had the pleasure of helping set the course but without organiser responsibilities, just a helper. I was impressed - with the location, map and organisation. The setting team got to know the area rather better than we really wanted or needed to, having done all the work to set, vet and place markers in 2022, and then another couple of long trips to retrieve them after the cancellation due to flooding and replace them for 2023. But there could be a lot worse places to spend your time wandering around the countryside.

Fieldwork involved a range of conditions - some perfect days, a bit of snowfall(!), and some serious flooding. One week before the original 2022 date the creek a few hundred metres before the hash house was unsafe to drive across in a Subaru (did you even notice that creek?). And a week later (date of the cancelled event) there were still creeks unsafe to cross on foot which meant some detours as we retrieved checkpoint markers.

It was a pleasure working with a competent and conscientious setting and organising team. Particularly Bass Burgess (lead setter, land owner liaison, plus other things) and Gary Carroll (mapping and overall coordination). I'm not going to name everyone who contributed but will also mention Nicolë Carpenter who took responsibility for on-the-day admin and Navlight for the first time and handled that admirably, and Nick Bowden who organised all the hash house equipment and logistics in a huge behind-the-scenes effort.

Part of the secret to a good event is a good map, and the method used by Gary to generate highly precise topographic and vegetation detail from LIDAR data continues to produce excellent maps. I made it a game for myself while setting/vetting to navigate entirely without my compass. The detail on the map made that possible for all but a couple of legs, and that was on a cloudy day when I couldn't use the sun for a general sense of direction in vague topography. You can't do that sort of thing on a poor map. (But I might add that while this was fun there were times when a compass bearing would have saved me time and distance.)

The other people to whom we owe huge thanks are the landowners of the four properties we used.  Rogaining is only possible with the cooperation of whoever owns or manages the land we use and all four of our landowners were very supportive.

We think we got the navigational standard about right and I'm not aware of any real issues with checkpoint placement. The course could perhaps have been a little shorter, saving us some work, but it's always better to err towards too many rather than too few checkpoints which can result in a team getting all the checkpoints before the 24 hours is up (or worse, more than one team).

It was interesting to see where teams went.  Those that had the distance in their legs minimised time in the lumpy terrain in the centre of the course and headed for the flatter country in the west. And very few teams went to the northeast corner, only 3 or 4. See the Rogaine Results website which displays the "point to point" routes taken by teams. You can also upload your GPS track to see exactly where you went and to reveal all your mistakes to the world.

In a post-event review the organising team came up with a long list of lessons learned for future improvement but they were at the nit-picking level, just fine-tuning to make the next bush event even better.

Being part of the setting team is something I thoroughly enjoy, even more than competing. You get all the navigational challenge (even more when first picking a checkpoint location) and a good workout without the time pressure (well, not as much as in a competition). Let the committee know if you think you might enjoy it too.

The long-awaited Midlands Muster certainly did not disappoint. Not only was the weather ideal, not too hot, not too cold, but the area made for an amazing course.

Andrew and I were both novices when it came to bush rogaines, having only done metrogaines, but that aside, we certainly weren’t at a disadvantage because we were used to off-route trails and navigation from trail running and other adventures.

In our preparation we were overambitious in our route planning, with our planned route being around the 100km mark! But we had options to cut corners (literally) and many corners were cut.

We started off racing the boys who went on to place 2nd in the 24-hour category before our paths diverged. The Saturday afternoon went quite smoothly. We each had a close call with a tiger snake and narrowly avoided a few navigation blunders. We nailed some good contouring from 77 to 94 to take us to the promised land: the vast western plains with the high scoring checkpoints. After a big blunder trying to reach 72 (a relatively simple one next to a dam) it was smooth sailing as we ran south with the northwester behind our backs.

Checkpoint 91 (a dam in the forest) proved a challenging checking point, especially as it was properly dark by the time we reached it. What followed from here was a long journey home. The going was tough through the bush before finding the track near checkpoint 60. We thought we had a track all the way home but managed to lose it in a clearing near checkpoint 73, meaning we ended up scrub bashing in the dark once again. The funniest part is that we ran past a walking couple on the road, only to have to run past them again about 30min later due to our navigation blunder. It felt like the hare and tortoise race!

Once we were back on course, we picked up a few more check points before reaching the hash house at 11:30pm. Dinner went down a treat! We were pretty knackered after 60+km over 11.5 hours. I was secretly relieved that this meant Sunday was going to be a much shorter outing.

We awoke at a leisurely time of 6.30am, fairly well rested. After some brekkie, we hit the trail at 7.30am, heading south for an anticlockwise loop. We made for some efficient point scoring on our until we buggered up the navigation near 49 and ended way too far north of the checkpoint, which we had to abandon to fit in 78 and 102 before our 11am deadline.

We thought we would be doing a mad sprint down the dirt road to the hash house, but we ended up with plenty of time to spare, picking up two checkpoints on our way back.

Once again, delicious catering awaited us. We calculated our own score over lunch and the biggest relief in the awards presentation came when our official score matched our self-calculated score.

The event was awesome. We both love trail running, so having a new area to explore was cool enough in itself, but throw in a great spirited competition, a buzzing vibe and impeccable event organisation, we both had one hell of a time.

And what astounded us was the entry cost at only $135. We’ve entered many a trail run event with $200 or upward entry fees, which usually only includes a t-shirt and an aid station or two, compared to 3 catered meals, 2 nights camping and access to an exclusive area of wilderness in the case of the Midlands Muster. We’re hanging up our trail running race bibs and trading them in for a compass and map, and telling all our trailing running friends to do the same! We're looking forward to the next year's event!

- Ryan King and Andrew Wright

Deddington Dilemma

Saturday, 16 November 2024

Deddington, Tasmania

A 12- or 6-hour rogaine set against the backdrop of the imposing Ben Lomond. This event will take you through a range of stunning ecosystems including open native forests, mature coniferous and runnable eucalypt plantation forests, farmlands, and high altitude meadows.

Entries open now.

2025 Australasian Rogaining Championships "Murrumbidgee Wayfaring"

15-16 March 2025

Experience the open plains and high country bush of northern Kosciuszko National Park. Situated at the northern end of Long Plain, this area features long unburnt tall forest with grassy plains. Expect lots of variety in this course, where the setters are wanting to show you it all. Hosted by the ACT Rogaining Association and set by champion rogainers David Baldwin and Julie Quinn. 

Bus transport from Canberra will be available. More details to come.

For a full list of rogaines in other states, visit the Australian Rogaining Association calendar.