Wombat Waddle

We are coming to the end of what has been a busy season for RT. Our final event for the year will be the Wombat Waddle, a 6 and 12-hour bush event on the spectacular Bangor property near Dunalley. Thanks to our Paddy Pallin sponsorship, we’ve been able to reduce the entry fees for this event.

For budding rogainers who have only entered metrogaines so far, this event will be a great opportunity to test out your bush navigation skills. For those newcomers whose first rogaine was the recent Winter Wander event, setters Mandy McIntyre and Jacqui Guy have catered for you and there are plenty of checkpoints close to the hash house.

A fantastic area, great value entry fees, and an excellent course suitable for all abilities. With so much going for it, why wouldn’t you enter?

Under 30s

The Australian Rogaining Association introduced a new age class at their AGM this year. This fills the gap that was created in 2024 when the veteran age limit was shifted up to 45 from 40 years old. RT will be adopting this age class for all our events. When all members of a team are aged 30 or less in the year of the event, they will be automatically assigned to this new category, and like all rogaine categories, this is inclusive. So those under 23 teams are also under 30.

Explore Clarence 

Thanks to Karen Wild-Allen, Simon Allen, Lucy Hawthorne, and Melissa Robertson for organising this event. Extra kudos to Karen, who organised sponsorship from the Clarence City Council and managed the innovative catering. The donuts and pizzas went down a treat.

Chris Arvier & Ryan King were the highest point scorers with a massive 2370 points. Their route, all the teams' scores, and category placings can be viewed online on the event results page.

Event photographs can be viewed here.

You can see where a selected team went here, or visualise where all the teams went with this bubble plot.

There are reports from Karen and entrants below.

Paddy Pallin

Paddy Pallin's sponsorship of RT will continue in 2027. The Paddy Pallin Rogaine will be RT’s bush event in November, at a date yet to be finalised.

As well as the ongoing sponsorship, generous spot prizes at events, Paddy Pallin is offering RT entrants free entry to their club and a 20% discount at their Hobart store. To benefit from this offer, take your Event Registration Confirmation email (sent after you enter an event) with you to the Hobart store.

See you with all the wombats in November.

Gary

In preparation for moving to the use of a National entry system in 2027 RT has simplified it's entry fee classes. The family entry category has been removed, but the age for free child entry has been increased from under 11 to under 14. Our modelling shows that this will provide similar benefits to most families who previously utilised the family entry subsidy. We will review this moving forward and adjust the classes if necessary.

By Mandy Macintyre

The Wombat Waddle 6 and 12-hour Bush Rogaine will be held on Saturday 28th November, 2026
 
Have you ever wondered where Abel Tasman's expedition in 1642, with the ships Heemskirk and Zeehaen, landed on Tasmanian soil?
 
Tasman Bay (aka Monument Bay) is on private land, so this may be your only opportunity to visit this historic site whilst exploring the diverse vegetation and topography of this waterside property. There are secluded bays, beaches, sea cliffs, dams and marshlands, mountains, hills, gullys, rocky ground and amazing views with water on three sides of the property. There are lots of forestry roads for easy running and/or navigation, but there is some dense vegetation too!
 
You are almost guaranteed to see wombats and stunning birdlife.  There are at least 10 pairs of eagles in the area, as well as wallabies, possums, echidna and Tasmanian devils.
 
The map is mostly private land owned by the Dunbabin family and also some Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) land. Bangor is a mixture of native vegetation, native forests, native conservation reserves and sown pasture for grazing. The property also has extensive irrigation and includes a vineyard producing premium wines.
 
For more history on the property visit the Bangor Vineyard Shed history web page.

By Sebastian Burgess

It’s time to start fitness training and refining your navigation skills so you are prepared for Tasmania’s upcoming big rogaine – the 2027 Australasian Championships. This event will be held on 17 and 18 April in the Midlands near Ross. The 24-hour championships will kick off at 11 am on the Saturday, as will a 6-hour option, promising great adventures for everyone.
 
The course is designed to challenge the most competitive entrants as well as providing for novices and those with young children, and everyone between. The terrain ranges from undulating open paddocks through some of the world's finest wool-growing grassy-woodland foothills, to the hillier forests and wet gullies on the Eastern Tiers. The event offers a rare privilege to explore large tracts in private nature reserves. These protect Tasmanian native animals, vegetation, and landscapes in a national biodiversity hotspot. You're in for a real treat. 
 
Event planning and fieldwork are well advanced, with checkpoints already set and vetting almost completed, all underpinned by an exceptional map that covers around 200 square km of land for you to explore. Our dedicated team is preparing to deliver an outstanding event; however, we will need some assistance on the event weekend and to collect checkpoints afterwards. Many tasks don't require big time commitments and will not preclude you from competing. If you enter the 6-hour event, you could perhaps help on the Sunday, or if you have a family member or friend who isn't competing, they will have lots of fun helping us run the show. Meals will be provided to those who lend us a hand while the kitchen is open. 
 
More details about the event and photographs can be viewed at arc2027.rt.asn.au. Entries will open in November.

The World Champs are returning to Australia on Thursday the 16th and Friday the 17th of September 2027, to be held in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.

Bulletin 2 is now available at wrc2027.rogaining.au. This bulletin provides details about entering, the event centre, accommodation, merchandise and transport. Entries open from 1 October 2026.

Stephen Yam, Karen Wild-Allen and Hermione Powell-Davies

By Karen Wild-Allen

In the months leading up to the event we had lots of fun traversing the area on bikes and on foot looking for interesting places, fun facts and quirky garden features. Simon made a super map and shared a simple phone app with us so that we could easily save each question in the right location. Clarence Council gave us an event permit and we were thrilled to receive some financial sponsorship to offset costs. Gary fixed up all the event documentation and an experienced team of volunteers ensured that entries, registration, equipment and on the day tasks all ran smoothly.

The event day was blessed with beautiful warm weather and sunshine that encouraged many teams to take the plunge and visit the swim pontoon checkpoint 106. Locals were entertained by runners shedding clothes, charging down the beach and leaping into the sea to swim out to the pontoon. Well done to everyone who embraced the challenge! Across the map all checkpoints were visited by at least one team with families and friends enjoying fine views whilst traversing parks, trails and beaches. After four hours of adventure, teams were rewarded with a sumptuous afternoon tea of pizza, cakes and fruit provided by local businesses. Results were tallied and celebrated whilst teams shared their route choices and discoveries with a great sense of achievement.

Thank you to all the volunteers and participants who stepped up to help.

Karen, Simon, Melissa, Lucy & Gary.  

Open Category Winning Couples - Rosie Arvier, Monica Crawford, Chris Arvier & Ryan King

Imperfect but Good Enough

by Chris Arvier

We were keen to have a crack at defending our metrogaine title after winning the Autumn Amble in May. There were big plans to do some solid running training before this event but the only part of that I nailed was the tapering! Ryan had just been in the 24hr event at the Aus Rogaine Champs the weekend before, and assured me his legs would be feeling fresh.

It was a glorious sunny morning, and we had a bit of a double date situation as our partners Rosie and Mon were also teaming up. For the route plan, it was hard to accurately estimate distances in the metro area, however it was immediately clear this was a pretty big course. We knew we would have to miss lots of the high value CPs at the edge of the map. We made a plan for a big loop with a few bailout options, but were regretting not arriving right on time to maximise planning!

Unknowingly, we made our first error at the very first checkpoint, 40 points missed due to a clue read-out miscommunication. We then set off up into Rokeby Hills, at one point being easily overtaken by another team, who were clearly stronger runners. After some momentary bushbashing we popped out into Rokeby, then toured the construction sites and new housing estates of Clarendon Vale. The first hour had elapsed, and it was around this point that we realised we were behind schedule for our ambitious plans.

Back through Howrah, with several more hiccups along the way: We somehow overshot #23, but made the good decision to not waste time backtracking for 20 points. We also attempted a scrubby shortcut between #62 and #75 (absolutely turned out to be a long cut), and got momentarily lost at a retirement village.

After the big climb over Waverley Hill, and with about 90 minutes remaining, we drastically changed our plan and cut out essentially all the CPs north of Eastlands, choosing to focus on the high density area around Rosny and Montague Bay. However, now without a route plan, we kept second guessing every decision, which potentially led to some inefficient route choices and missed opportunities. We had serious regrets about not changing the plan slightly earlier, which would have allowed us to pick up 2 more CPs while we were near Eastlands (originally had been planning to grab these on the way back, but our revised plan made this too inefficient). 

On the home stretch and time for a swim. We'd been planning to paper-scissors-rock for the pontoon detour, but thought it made the most sense for us both to do it! It was such a warm and sunny day, and we'd done about 30ks by the time we got to the beach, so it was very refreshing to have a quick dip. There was some debate over whether this would either freshen up or seize up the legs for the final dash. For me, the cold water was a perfect intermission, and post-swim was about the only part of the day where I was (briefly) able to set the pace.

We made it back late (again) and copped a 70 point penalty. We lost another 40 points for that wrong answer, and still had some regrets about some imperfect route decisions on the fly. So it was a very big surprise to hear that we had scraped together the highest score, equally exciting was finding out that Rosie and Mon had won the women's category!

Thanks so much to all the organisers and volunteers for another great event, as always it was impeccably organised and great to see some many teams having fun out there. Very much looking forward to the next one!

Drew Beswick, Lincoln Quilliam & Jake Terhell

Reflections on the Explore Clarence Metrogaine

By Drew Beswick and Lincoln Quilliam

With some light pre-event logistics, we all arrived 90 minutes before the start eager to get our map and make some plans. Our planning having improved somewhat since we started our Rogaining adventures.

4 Hours, not too hilly and a nice day so we agreed around 30kms was probably achievable and set our course accordingly using as much coast and bush as we could find.

We agreed navigation and scribing roles, last check of gear and off to the start. None of us were truly local to the area so this was a genuine explore for us and it was great to take in the beautiful coast to start and then into the hills above Tranmere an obvious favourite of local mountain bike riders.

We developed our ‘system’ as we went and discovered we could do better at check points so as not to lose too much time. We got better as we went along and sensibly kept to our own advice of starting how we wanted to finish.

We had planned on getting out to Gordon’s Hill but time was passing and we were very keen to get the swim in so cut off a couple of controls and turned around at 91 for the coastal path home. Sadly, we still missed the swim, as maybe we’d slowed a little, or maybe out string line in the planning was a bit off… Anyway, we did really enjoy the views from the paths from Rosny through Bellerive back to the Hash House for some well earned rest.

And yep, Strava said 34km when the string suggested just on 30km so some more practice (and pins!) required there. Pizza was awesome, but family and work commitments called so not as much socialising as we would have liked after.

In all, another terrific event from Rogaining Tasmania and a massive thanks to everyone involved with planning and putting the event on – it was a lot of fun!

Elizabeth Woodgate (NSW) and Thorlene Egerton (Tas)

2026 Australian Rogaine Championships: The 24-Severn

The 2026 Australian (Australasian) Rogaining Championships, known as "24-Severn", were held near Stanthorpe/Nundubbermere in south-east Queensland on 29-30 August 2026. The course combined open grazing country with the rugged terrain of Sundown National Park, which had the steep sided Severn River running through the middle. 

Weather conditions were close to ideal: dry underfoot, comfortable/’a-bit-on-the-warm-side’ daytime temperatures, mild overnight temperatures, and a full moon for much of the night. No mud, no extreme cold, crossable rivers, no soaking rain, and good moonlight are about as favourable as championship conditions get. Apart from….

The bush was very slow and a bit nasty in places, and the hills were STEEP, but only on half of the map. This is kind of OK as long as you know. If you know you can plan accordingly and adjust your expectations (both in terms of speed and enjoyment). 

There were many teams caught out by the unexpected slowness in parts of the map. In the end we did OK. We went anticlockwise through the national park section first. By the time we got to the south we were 2-3 hours behind our schedule but had options to drop loops in the thicker treed stuff. We also heard the horror stories from the people who had done a lot of the eastern/southeastern checkpoints. These people had fewer options to drop things on their routes back to the north section. 

We had a good long stop at one of the two All Night Cafes and then took the simplest route north and out of the Sundown National Park. We then took an even longer break at the HH. At 4.45 we headed back out and into the glorious open farmland. Sunrise was gorgeous, and we enjoyed the rolling hills, open forest and short cropped grassland, with fun navigation. Here we managed to underestimate our speed and finished more than an hour early, having dropped the checkpoints furthest away from HH. 

The winning team, Queenslanders Mitch Nissen and Murray Macpherson, reportedly covered around 135 km with approximately 5,000 m of ascent, which is an incredible example of physicality and clean navigation. We ended up doing 70kms and 2700m climb (as measured by my Garmin watch). And apparently we're only moving for 18 hours!

The organisers and volunteers did a terrific job putting on the event with a great crew of local adventure racers staffing the All Night Cafés all night. 

Queensland won the interstate challenge and Trans-Tasman challenge ahead of New Zealand and New South Wales. Given the terrain was in south-east Queensland and Queensland rogainers may have been more familiar with the terrain in Sundown, that was probably not unexpected.

Thanks to my incredibly strong teammate, Liz Woodgate from NSW helping us finish 36th overall (1st womens supervet, 1st womens vet and 3rd open womens). As for the other Tasmanian teams - Luke and Ivy Rapley had a great event coming 24th overall. James Down and Karen Cole came 48th (2nd mixed supervet). Also, congratulations to Jon Sutcliffe who finished a great 31st place overall (and 4th in Men’s SuperVet). Ryan King and Andrew Wright were the best placed Tasmanians at 16th overall. Christine Brown and Karen Peddley came 49th overall (4th in both womens supervet and womens vet categories).

All the results, maps and photos can be viewed at qldrogaine.asn.au/arc2026
 

Wombat Waddle

Saturday 28th of November 2026: A bush 6-hour and 12-hour, at Bangor, Dunalley

The 2027 Australasian Championships

Tiers of Joy. 17th and 18th April 2027, Ross, Tasmania

20th World Rogaining Championships

16th and 17 September 2027, Rawnsley Park Station - Flinders Ranges, South Australia

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