Blair Trewin and Kay Haarsma took out the open (21A) classes at theinaugural NT Championships, held at Lok Cabay near Batchelor on Sunday. Haarsma was almost unopposed in W21- after her only competitor (TEO local Katie Webby) pulled out with a bad leg gash, requiring a quick trip up to Darwin Hospital. Mani Berghout, another
local TEO orienteer running W35A but same course as Kay, gave her a run for her money finishing just 9 minutes behind.

Half a dozen contested M21A. First place seemed fairly settled once Trewin had caught his most likely rival, Rob Vincent, four minutes at the second control, but the gap had only grown by another minute at the 8km mark of the 13.1km course. The margin widened steadily after that, eventually reaching 13 minutes by the finish. Vincent ended up in a close tussle on times with Murray Scown (in M20, but running the same course), with Scown just prevailing at the end after a solid run.

The pick of the other classes was M60, where three New South Welshmen fought out a tight contest. Dave Lotty had just under two minutes in hand over Ron Junghans with Dick Ogilvie a further two minutes behind. Barry Sampson also had to work hard for his M65 win, by 87 seconds over Neville Cobbold and Nev Bleakley. The New Zealanders made their presence felt amongst the veteran women, with several placegetters and a good win for Bunny Rathbone, running up a couple of age groups in W60, while Lynn Dabbs had one of the better runs of the day in comfortably winning W50.

There was a pleasingly large attendance of around 120, with many coming from interstate, a significant New Zealand contingent, and even the odd Briton. The terrain gave competitors a very different experience, with a mixture of gully-spur that was very rocky underfoot, flat black-soil plains (with the occasional enormous termite mound) and ancient, large stromatolite rock formations. The vaguer areas brought many undone, and together with the hot and unseasonally humid conditions, made for long times on many courses.