Pound Bend Park lies on a bend of the
Yarra River, notable for the 145 metre-long tunnel which was dug out
by 19th Century miners to divert the flow of the river,
making the whole of the river bend more accessible for gold panning.
Like so many schemes of the time, the pickings barely paid back the
expenditure.
The park is quite small and has limited
technical challenge, but is made extremely attractive by its location
only ten minutes from our house. I hadn't been there before, but I
will certainly return. Planner Ruth took the view that it would not
sustain a viable orienteering event every year, but since this series
is aimed at newcomers (or which there were many) I'm not so sure.
We looked after Claudia and Max while
their parents ventured out on their courses. We collected sticks,
counted ducks on the fast-flowing river, played hide-and-seek in the
bushes, all the while looking out for the parental return. Both came back in three-quarters of an hour, in time for us to change and
prepare for our own efforts. I decided on the Big Boys course again and
Pat registered for the C course.
I legged it along the path to the first
control, overtaking Pat on the way, and pushed it along to the second
one. Nice and easy. Later splits examination showed I was barely in
the top 30 at this stage. Maybe I will catch up later. Or maybe not.
I lose a small amount of time at control 6 when I run past the flag,
but find a good route down the steep slope to 8, only to then stagger
back up the hill to the next control. This was as good as it got,
with another small miss at control 14 before chasing a kangaroo (who
clearly had not followed instructions) round the hill. I finished
just inside the hour, well down the order, but ahead of some of my
contemporaries. Scanning the results, I could see no-one ahead of me
of similar vintage, which is my usual rule-of-thumb.
I enjoyed an event which had changes of
vegetation, although the climbing was challenging. I calculated 145
metres of climb (most of it late on), with the course – nominally
5.6km – taking me 6.9km. Adjusting for the climb, that's 7.2
minutes/km. At my time of life, I'll settle for that.
