Day 2 South African Youth Squad (Race Day)

On the morning of the 22nd of April there were a certain few who had quite an early and exciting wake up as Carl, Tania, Carla and Cameron rushed to pack a lunch and prepared to catch the 6:34 bus to our first competition. The rest of us followed about an hour later (as we had a later start time) and we set of for the +-2 hour trip of bus, train, train, bus to Bro station. A few fortunate were able to hitch hike with the fellow orienteers to the event centre from the station, and the rest had an early warm up for the event with a 2 km walk. The temperature was well in the single digits when we arrived and set up camp.

The earliest start from our group was Cameron at around 10am, and the latest was Luan at 12:05.

 As I prepped for my 11:59 start, I was amazed at the amount of people at the event, hundreds after hundreds of orienteers filling the main field. We all felt a bit nervous, as the day before we struggled on the under 12 course. I was about to attempt an under 18 course... As I set off I started slow and tried to just make sure I knew where I was going. At first it was really difficult, almost like it was our first time orienteering, as I was trying to find what worked and didn't work for me.

I eventually got into a routine of bearing, distance, finding catch feature and using attack point as I progressed from leg to leg. I started to get more and more comfortable with the terrain, and after one or two minor errors I started to really enjoying myself  with hitting my control better. Close to the finish I caught up with Tinus (who hurt his ankle again) and we both finished strong.

Our trip to the museum has been postponed so we all discussed our route choices. Most of us felt it was a new and difficult experience of the Swedish forests.

After a nice warm shower we all settled down and started to relax as Tania went over  routes with a few of us, and helped us to realise the once dreaded forests weren't actually so bad. With a few comparisons learnt quickly from our many mistakes.

We all played a friendly game of ultimate frisbee (Myself, Ryno, Tinus, Tristan and Cameron VS Carl, Carla, both Sarahs, Heather and Luan in which our team won 8-4). Tristan and Heather started on the dinner and the rest of us played a game of Uno as the sun was setting.

Written by Dylan Fenthum