2023 Results

Whareroa and beyond: Sunday 10th December

• 2023 6-hour rogaine results (PDF)
• 2023 3-hour rogaine results (PDF)

Planner's Commentary

What a cracking day it was for a rogaine. Kicked off in the sideways rain and viz-killing low cloud and finished with a few hours of gorgeous sun.

I made damn sure to put the Trig in Big Trig, but maybe I overdid it on the Big, with the winners pulling in just under half the available 2920 points and second place collecting the most controls at just over half the available 62. Everyone seemed to adapt to the scale well though, getting back on time or at most a handful of minutes late, except for Team Bob who were spectacularly late and in doing so provided some delightful quotes which sum up this silly game of ours:

• @ 30 minutes late: “We’re having some nav issues.”
• @ 76 minutes late: “We may still be 30 mins away. We weren’t where we thought we were.”

The 6 hour provided enough time to hunt 100’s in the Akas, with winners Worms Adrift the only team to collect more than one. It isn’t all about the big numbers though, as second place Around in Circles ignored the 100’s and opted instead to collect as many controls as possible.

In the 3 hour it appears the winning strategy was to try to clear the Whareroa section of the course, with the winners Chilli con Carnage coming within 4 controls of doing so. The first team to venture beyond the great wall of out of bounds and collect the trig were E M in 9th.

Notable controls:

• Unsurprisingly, 10 was the most popular control sitting right outside the front door, with 67 of the 71 teams correctly(ish) counting the pillars. There were 13 pillars – a few counted 13, but plenty counted 10, 11, or 12, and all were accepted. 2 pillars was not.
• Controls 40, 52, and 62 were all collected just the once, all by the winners Worms Adrift so maybe we can learn something from them. Worms, maybe you could learn from all 47 other teams who looked for and found the lone nikau at 28: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhopalostylis_sapida in case you’re wondering.
• The only control not collected was 100. Two teams went out that way, one team looked for it and they ended up on the wrong spur. I’ll admit that while setting on Saturday I couldn’t find the track down to 100 either, even though it was bloody obvious a few months ago. Perhaps its one of those things you can only find when you’re not looking for it. Someone please go out there, don’t look for it, and let me know.

Other control notes:

• 38 and 81 were very popular claims. Most teams found both so no claims were given.
• All claims for 45 were given - a black rag in a tree becomes near invisible inside a cloud, whoops.
• 55 also tripped up a few, finding KCDC’s cone and calling it done. The correct cone is about 100m further NE around a corner. Many answer sheets with KCDC correct answer.
• There were more numbered weta hotels at 24 than the 4 I found, by the sounds of it over a wider area than I searched. Submissions of 4-6 were all accepted.
• I swear there were 2 seats at 12 when I looked, but you all reported 1. All given. Maybe I’m the one who needs to go to SpecSavers.

It’s been heaps of fun setting my first course over the last few months, thanks to everyone who came out and enjoyed it in the wind and rain and mud.

See you all out there again next year.

Aaron Lynch
Planner