Winter Classic Hapua Wetlands 2007

The club apologises that it could not award two trophies. The Open Men's trophy is still in the hands of Bryn Davies who won it last year and W21 trophy is in the hands of Piret Klade. We will endeavour to get the trophies to the winner as soon as possible.

The eighteenth annual running of the Wayne Cretney memorial event resulted in some tired and I hope happy competitors on a clear winter's day in the east of Wairarapa. It seems that there was a hole in the weather as everywhere else was wet.

There was no really tough vegetation in the Cretney tradition (the bush was fairly clean) but the area was steep and physical. I'm sorry I had the water and soup in the woolshed as not many people used it. Also in the tradition of the event, the longest and toughest leg was run last by all competitors.

One runner remarked that he went from the sublime to the ridiculous - going from the tricky lake/slump area to the short 0.5km leg around the woolshed. This very short leg I think provided variety and was a good way to break up the runners.

Mapping was done by hand (no photogrammetry) with the marsh area and the bush area providing difficult mapping challenges. Hapua is a neat area with many surprising features and very picturesque. In all the time I spent mapping, I only every got some drizzle on me once. I hope that the club will hold a larger event on the map in the near future - and the map may be extended to the west where there is more bush.

Bryan Teahan - course planner.