Ballarat Classic 1 – Petticoat Gully, Sunday 28 April

Orienteering Ballarat and Eureka Orienteers are SUPER EXCITED to announce the start of the Ballarat Classics Series for 2024. This series is about classic longer style distance orienteering in classic areas.

Petticoat Gully is looking outstanding at the moment and a selection of six courses have been curated for your enjoyment on Sunday the 28th of April. Please choose carefully depending on your abilities and fitness levels, remembering that this area contains large amounts of mining features and detail which can be strenuous getting into and out of and skirting around the edges of. In general, these courses will take longer than the same distance on flatter open forest.

Online entry has closed, but you are welcome to enter on the day.  Information flyer

FEES:
$12 for Club Members (21 years and older)
$17 for Non-Club Members (21 years and older)
$5 for all Juniors (20 years and below)
$25 Maximum for Families

TOILETS: Creswick has the nicest closest toilets. There are lots of toilets in Ballarat. Plus Ballan has toilets. This event is not providing toilets at the event arena. Be aware of this and take precautions.

DIRECTIONS: There are some directions to get to the event in the Information Flyer from Melbourne, Bendigo and Ballarat. Given that, it is, however, uncertain which direction Navigation Systems will take you as there are SO many roads in this forest. The KEY information is that parking will be in the vicinity of the corner of Slaty Creek Road and Standard Road. You are free to come through the forest any way you want but some roads are not always in the best condition for cars not taken off road. With this in mind, there will ONLY be signs for the roads and locations discussed in the directions given in the Information Flyer.

COURSES:

Course 1 – 8.1Km – (“The Enduro”) – This will be challenging, with some long legs and plenty of mining detail. Some extra physical country with pockets of thick vegetation and steep slopes. For the serious bush Orienteer, but always loads of fun!

Course 2 – 6.3Km – (“The Middleweight”) – As above being challenging, with long legs and mining detail, but just a bit less of it. You still need to be fairly strong to get into this middleweight bout!

Course 3 – 3.7Km – (“The Miner”) – This is a medium range distance orienteering course for today. Don’t expect to spend long with your eyes off the map. Nice and open, but plenty of scrambling, varying, mining terrain. As the name suggests, you may think you have just come here to go mining. Thousands have obviously been here before you! The controls are scattered all over those previous miners’ handiwork!

Course 4 – 3.0Km – (“The Minor Chord Miner”) – Not a sad musical song about mining, but a very similar course to “The Miner” in the same country, but simply just not as long. All comments for “The Miner” above also apply to “The Minor Chord Miner”.

Course 5 – 2.7Km – (“The Relaxed and Comfortable”) – You can get around this one without anywhere near as much effort. The navigation is a bit easier too. You could probably do 30% of this on tracks, but where’s the fun in that? On reflection, it would perhaps not be advised to get too relaxed nor comfortable in this area until you are finished as you still need your eyes open, brain in gear, legs nimble and wits about you to conquer Petticoat Gully!! But the name is in relation to the other courses. This one in comparison to the four above is so much more “Relaxed and Comfortable”!

Course 6 – 2.0Km – (“The New Chum Novice”) – This is easy rather than very easy!!! Petticoat Gully does not have many super easy sections! But it is still an awesome place to start out in Orienteering. This “New Chum Novice” course is not just on tracks as it follows erosion gullies, creeks, paths are there is NOT a control at every decision point. Will there be water in the creek or not? It has been very dry! You will find out! If a miner were new to the goldfields then you were called a New Chum. “The New Chum Novice” is a fantastic walk through this goldfields area and actually, I think everyone would enjoy doing this one at Petticoat Gully, on Sunday the 28th of April, 2024!

The Petticoat Gully map is inherently not as straightforward as some other Orienteering locations but whatever course you choose it is a beautiful place to go for a walk/run and also an adventure at the same time which, when you think about it, is Orienteering in a nut shell!

Advice is always available for beginners (and others!!) both before and on the day! So, bring your questions too! Looking forward to see you at Petticoat Gully soon!