After two rounds in the North Island it was about time for the South Island to host a round. This year the round was held in conjunction with the South Island Secondary Schools champs with the aim to reduce organisation time…which didn’t really work out that way…however it was the first time in 3 or so years that more than 3 North Islanders bothered to show up with a good size group of Northerners making the effort and getting down here.

Long distance was held out at Orton Bradley. Unfortunately the day before the event the planners lost the computer data and had to start from scratch re-plotting the courses….a big job but crisis averted…or so they thought…One control was placed wrong early on which affect me and a few others, and then later in the course one of the controls had been put out with the wrong number. Since there was ample controls on the course (39 in total) it wasnt such a big deal to cancel a couple of them from the results. I had a good run up until the course error and removing the controls affected it showed as I came out on top in the results, just ahead of Chris.

The sprint was a short hop across to Sumner to hoon around Van Asch School. It was fast and furious and heaps of fun. I lost some time early on and made two bad route choices coupled with a 15 sec mistake near the end which set me back in 5th place. A BBQ round at the Cory-Wrights was a good end to the day and a good chance to catch up with everyone.

Day 2 was a mass start loops race out at Pines Beach. It was again intense detail tackled at high speed which lent itself to a few errors… I dropped a bit of time in the middle of the course and finished in 4th place 1 min behind Chris, and 2-3mins behind Toby and Greg. Behind me was a 8min gap or something ridiculous like that! A good hard race to finish off the weekend, leaving me feeling a little bit shattered!

Currently I am sitting in 2nd place in the Super Series, a good 25pts behind Toby who has a massive lead. Behind me its Tom and Tim…so a real battle of the T’s this year!