By Sam Woolford (middle) with Jett McComb (right) and Euan Best (left)
The Deddington Dilemma rogaine was held in a mix of paddocks, plantations and wooded farmland just to the west of the Ben Lomond plateau, and views of the spectacular Stacks Bluff were present from many of the hillsides on course.
We decided, after a brief comparison of our route options, that our best plan for the rest of the morning was a game of frisbee; however the wind was pretty strong and the frisbee kept getting blown in one direction so a fair bit of warm up jogging was involved for retrieval. We had a grand plan including clearing all the checkpoints, and our intention sheet became known as the ‘answer sheet’ with a non-negotiable plan. We set out fast through some low pointers just south of the road, then did a big loop through the southern section of the map, abandoning the answer sheet only a few hours in and skipping a 30 pointer.
Just out of 63 (our fourth checkpoint) we came across a very unconcerned tiger snake who leisurely slithered out of our way, and it was the first of many wildlife animals we encountered, including a lot of spiders in the plantations, many possums at night, wombats everywhere at all times and a pretty steady stream of rogainers. We had a break at 61 and several other teams arrived just afterwards to see us sitting on the ground enjoying a snack.
It was a hot day and we were looking forward to the three water stations we eventually visited, although not so much the extra kilo or two of water in our packs. Euan was also looking forward to the hash house, talking incessantly from about the four-hour mark about how great it was going to be to get back and eat some curry. At our second water point we made another minor modification to our plan, omitting six checkpoints from the north eastern section in favour of getting all bar one in the north west. We found the forest was generally pretty clear but with sections of thick scrub and fallen timber, especially in the north east where we were glad to have cut it short.
Euan and Jett’s favourite part of the course came at around 9pm, when with three hours remaining we ran within a kilometre of the hash house at checkpoint 53 on our way to our last loop at night, and all they wanted to do was follow the lights towards the curry. Our navigation had been pretty solid for the most part, it was a little trickier at night but we managed to avoid large time losses or having to give up on any checkpoints. Overall it was a great rogaine, and we’d like to thank the organisers for putting it on!