Dubbo, Monday 14 June 2010: A major orienteering event was held near Dubbo over the Queen's Birthday Long weekend.  Known as "QBIII", the event was well attended with more than 300 competitors venturing west for the event.

Full results for the weekend can be found here.  PHOTOS of the event can be found here.

Saturday was the sprint event which was held in the grounds of 3 local adjacent schools.  The course was flat but had 3 separate sets of buildings to challenge the runners.  Carol Jacobson starred for Garingal in the sprint event with a first placing in the very competitive W60A class.

The carnival then moved on Sunday to the hills south of Dubbo for the long distance event.  The hills were populated with thousands of granite boulders and rocks.  This is one of the best (and most complex) orienteering maps in NSW and was a real challenge.  It was an interesting start to the day with the temperature at 2 degrees on the way out to the event, but it turned out to be a magnificently clear sunny day.  There were some notable times from Garingal members including Bryony Cox, Michele Dawson, Toby Wilson, Tania Kennedy, Jim Merchant and Melissa Annetts.  There were also some notable performances at the bush dance on Sunday evening.

Monday saw the last day with the middle distance event in the same hills south of Dubbo.  It was good to go for a run following the 0-4 drubbing in the world cup soccer earlier in the morning.  The times over the 3 days were added together to determine the overall result.  Garingal divisional winners included Tom Kennedy (M10N),  Melissa Annetts (W12A), Alex Kennedy (M12A), Matthew Hill (M16A), Michele Dawson (W16A), Christa Schafer (W70A).  Tania Kennedy was pipped at the post in the W Open B by just over a minute.