2007 Nav Shield - DALTONS DEFENCE (near Wollombi)

Only one Shoalhaven Bushwalker team competed in the 1-day event in Class 1. A women's team consisting of Sandra Kelley, Kynie Evison, Pam Harcombe and Wendy Hamlin finished 11th out of 44 teams.

Had all four classes been combined, they would have finished 16th out of 61 teams.

Report by Sandra Kelley
Where: Dalton's Defence between Wollombi and Broke in the Yengo National Park and the Pokolbin State Forest.

On Friday 6th July, Kynie Evison, Wendy Hamlin (a new club member), Pam Harcombe and Sandra Kelley left Nowra and headed for base camp, which was on private property on the Wollombi Brook. Evidence of the recent 10-metre floods was obvious and it gave organisers some concern as to whether they were going to get the checkpoints out on time.

After finding a camp site, we set up the trailer and got a fire under way as the temperature started to drop. At 7.30pm it was time to collect team maps and course notes. The system for handing these out is slow so it was some time before we could sit down, plot the coordinates, plan our route and waterproof our maps. We chose to stay in the Pokolbin State Forest as the elevations were friendlier. We got to bed about 11.30pm.

Saturday we were up at 6am. It was a chilly morning with ice on the windscreens. Following a hearty breakfast and plenty of coffee, we had a briefing at 8.30am before the siren sounded and a multitude of walkers started the event. We entered the one-day event: the two-day option required bush camping. The course overall was relatively easy going but there were certainly navigational challenges. We reached all the planned checkpoints (one twice) with only one major error of judgement.

Most Nav Shield courses have a road that you can plan to use to return at night. This one didn't. On reaching our last check point we decided to follow a creek down and out to the main road. The first kilometre and a half were OK but as darkness fell the creek became impassable. We retreated up the side of the mountain (southern side) but this proved thick and steep. It took an hour and a half to go one kilometre but we did manage to make it back to base before 7.30pm (end of one-day event).

We enjoyed a meal around a warming fire, checked our results and were delighted to find we had scored 370 points which gave us 11th position out of 44 teams entered. We collapsed into bed tired but pleased with our efforts.

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