Australopers Newsletter October 2025

‍Welcome to the October Australopers Newsletter. So much has happened that I (Tara) am going to split this edition into two parts for r e a d a b i l i t y. Nationals was a resounding success and the twilight series fast approaches. So pull out a comfy chair and put on your reading glasses and get ready for an exciting newsletter (theres a photo of my cat at the end too but you have to read everything first before you get to it).

‍Upcoming Spring Twilight Series:

‍PLEASE READ THIS:

As you may already know, the twilight series is fast approaching. This series is extremely important to introducing new people to orienteering.

This series is quite volunteer intensive so I have two requests of our members.

Please pre-enter events online. The volunteers on the day have a deal of work looking after our younger and newer orienteers. Helping these beginner orienteers can be quite time intensive so it would be much appreciated if you completed online entries.

Secondly, if you can spare some time to volunteer for these events this would be greatly appreciated. If you are able to assist, please add your name to the volunteer roster.

‍Australian Orienteering Championships Results:

Now please see the results from the recent Australian Orienteering Championships complied by my wonderful father. 

More than 50 Australopers travelled to Brisbane to compete in the Australian

Championships and the Australian Schools Championships. There were ample spurs and gullys, snakes, hot days, iced coffees and enjoyable courses. If anyone wants to relive the experience (or see what you missed) then you could visit the Youtube channel of Gavin Milne (NZ) who has videos of each day. 

Team Australopers had some wonderful results through the Championships.

Firstly, we will look at the Tasmanian Schools Team results which were just fantastic. The team, which had 15 Australopers, came second in the Australian Schools Orienteering Trophy and third in the Southern Cross Junior Challenge Trophy. Three of our Australopers were named in the 2025 Honour Team. Congratulations to Liana Stubbs, Katie Clauson and Ella Clauson. Also, congrats to Euan and Ivy from EVOC who were part of the Honour Team and both won medals in individual events.

In individual results for Australopers during schools championships:

Liana Stubbs - 1st Senior Girls Sprint

Ella Clausen - 1st Junior Girls Sprint, 1st Junior Girls Long

Relay Results:

Senior Girls (Liana, Katie, Sophie) - 1st Australian Team, 2nd Overall

Senior Boys (Isaac, Callum, Euan*)- 3rd Australian Team

Junior Girls (Beatrix, Ella, Ivy*) - 1st Australian Team, 1st Overall

Junior Boys (Angus, Felix, Henry) - 3rd Australian Team, 3rd Overall

Moving on to the Australian Championships Australopers again performed very well.

In the Sprint Event we had 56 starters

5 in Top 3 finishers

11 in Top 6 finishers

In the Long Event we had 58 starters

13 in Top 3

22 in Top 6

In the Middle Event we had 51 starters

10 in Top 3

18 in Top 6

Now to individual results. (If I’ve missed you I am really sorry. There are a lot of results to look at). For the Run the River 3 Days I am reporting Overall results:

W10A Abagail Hewitt - 3rd Long, 3rd Middle, 3rd Overall Women G (Run the River)

W12A Chloe Marchant - 2nd Overall Women F (Run the River)

W14A Ella Clauson - 1st Sprint, 1st Middle

W16A Sophie Hartmann - 3rd Long, 3rd Middle

W20E Liana Stubbs - 2nd Middle

W21A Bec Butler - 2nd Sprint

W40A Anthea Fee - 2nd Sprint, 2nd Long

W40A Bonnie Butler - 3rd Long

W45AS Alison Stubbs - 1st Long

W45AS Meisha Austin - 2nd Long

W65AS Kate Lucas - 1st Long

W65A Diana Cossar-Burgess - 3rd Middle

W70A Louise Fairfax - 2nd Middle

W75A Hilary Cane - 2nd Long

M10A Walter Butler - 2nd Sprint, 2nd Long, 3rd Middle

M10A Angus Ward - 1st Middle

M10A Louis Marcant - 2nd Middle

M14A Angus Hewitt - 2nd Middle

M21AS Reid Barry - 2nd Long

M40A Richard Ward - 2nd Long

M65A Sebastian Burgess - 3rd Sprint, 2nd Long, 2nd Overall Men C Run the River

M65A Michael MorCew - 2nd Middle

Relay Results (Teams with Australopers member)

First

- W14 (Beatrix, Ella, Ivy*)

- M14 (Angus, Felix, Henry)

- M20E (Albin, Euan*, Jett*)

- W Open B (Meisha, Aria, Alice)

Second

- W55AS (Louise, Diana, Thorlene*)

- M Open B (Mike, James, Geoff)

Third

- M55AS (Mike, Brett, Greg)

Just to complete recent results we have the 2025 Non Elite Rankings

M10 - Walter Butler 1st, Angus Ward 2nd, Louis Marcant 3rd

M14 - Angus Hewitt 2nd

M65 - Sebastian Burgess 3rd

W14 - Ella Clauson 1st

W16 - Sophie Hartmann 1st

W70 - Louise Fairfax 3rd

‍Mike's Heroic Run:

Please enjoy a piece from Austraolopers very own Mike Calder about his run at the Australian Orienteering Relay Championships. As the daughter of one of the runners in this relay team I was very invested.

At the recent Australian Champs I was the third leg runner in the Mens Open B Tasmanian Relay team. My teammates Geoff Powell and Jim Laver had good runs and I took off in second place. The terrain had recently been burnt off, so I broke into a shuffle, which is as close as I get to running these days.

On the first leg I tripped and fell flat on my face, breaking not only one arm off my glasses, but my middle finger. Undeterred I continued on, holding one side of my broken glasses with my hand. On Leg 3, I face-planted again, losing hold of my glasses. Getting to my knees I crawled around blindly for several minutes, attempting to find the remains of my glasses, without success.

I’m almost blind without my glasses and my map was now a total blur. I was tempted to give up and walk back, but there were only three teams in our section and I only had to finish for the team to get a medal, so I soldiered on. I couldn’t see any details on my map, but by squinting could just discern the red lines, so I lined up my compass and walked on a bearing, not knowing if I was aiming for a creek, a boulder, a hilltop or whatever. On Leg 5 I managed to follow the wrong red line, got tangled up in a barbed wire fence and ended up flat on my back. Nearing the spectator control and in full view of my teammates, I tripped and face-planted for the third time. By borrowing a pair of glasses at the spectator control, I was able to complete the course.

The happy ending for the team was that despite all the time lost by my mishaps, we managed to finish second, missing out on the gold by just 3 minutes!

‍Alright folks that all we have time for right now, stay tuned for, in a few days time, the second part of the newsletter will be coming out. To hold everyone over until that time here is a photo of the Australopers Secretary of Fluff (Daisy, who had a lot to say at the last Australopers committee meeting).

Dont forget to enter for the twilights,

Yours sincerely,

Tara Powell - Editor in Chief