24 hour event
The Australian Champs are a 24 hour event - starting at midday on Saturday. The challenge is to visit as many checkpoints as possible in the 24 hours. However your team can always come back to the event centre (Hash House) for a sleep or food before heading out again. The Hartley Lifecare team will be providing the catering for the event with soups, curries and hot drinks to keep your team on the go.
Specific directions to the Hash House will be provided in the fiinal instructions in late April. Most of the event area is on private property that is largely not farmed and still has its native bush cover. A few - fairly rough - firetrails cross the area, but the course setters think you won't need to use them! The altitude of the course ranges from 750m to 1050m and most of the area is nicely undulating with a few steep pinches to keep you on your toes.
The rules for rogaining can be read at the Australian Rogaining Association website.
The map
The area is classic spur-gully terrain which means some of the navigation will need extra attention. If you haven't done any navigating lately, a bit of pre-event practice could save you a geographically embarrassing moment (or two). A little bit of the map is shown here to get you in the right frame of mind.
Ron has created the map using Matthew Hollingsworth's mapping software available at https://github.com/mholling/nswtopo
Sun, moon and weather
May typically provides superb clear days with cool evenings. The mean maximum (for Cooma) in May is 15.6 degrees and the mean minimum is 0.7 degrees. The mean number of days of rain in May with >1mm are 4.3 days. It is likely to be cold at night so pack some thermals.
Sun and Moon
The sun will set at 5:15 pm on Saturday and rise again at 6:46 am on Sunday. There is about 30 minutes of twilight after the sun sets and before it rises.
The moon rises on Saturday at 2:57 pm and sets on Sunday at 2:58 am with it being 82% full. The full moon is on 11th May.