NAVCAN, short for Navigation Canberra, is a navigation event organised by members of the ACT State Emergency Service. The morning of NAVCAN was a beautiful cold blue sky Canberra day. After two early drop-outs the Rivers SES team of Ruth Pond and Troy Skaleskog headed off in Rivers 61 to the staging area for NAVCAN in Kowen Forest ... via a local coffee shop of course! We were joined by a team from the Rivers Rural Fire Service in Rivers Command.

The staging area at Kowen Forest was well organised and we were provided with a set of maps and list of checkpoints to mark on the maps. After getting ourselves ready we realised there were over a hundred checkpoints to mark on the map and we quickly ran out of time. I went to the team briefing, whilst Ruth plotted as many checkpoints as possible.
When the start siren went most teams set off straight away, whilst Ruth and I kept plotting checkpoints and checking them against the master map. We were the last team to leave. The second last team was the Rivers RFS crew, who included Stephen Young, the President of Rivers. Stephen left us with the parting words, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

Rivers SES eventually headed out along the route planned by Ruth. We hit the first checkpoint we aimed for and quickly discovered that the event organisers had cunningly tried to confuse competitors by putting different numbers on the physical checkpoints than were on the checkpoint list. After several discussions about this with other competitors, we went looking for our second checkpoint. It turned out that one of the roads marked on the map did not exist any more and as the checkpoint was not worth many points we decided to skip that one and keep moving. We hit our next few checkpoints and navigated our way to the radio checkpoint at the fire tower, which had a magnificent view of Canberra. We had our gear checked and our control card stamped and moved on to the next checkpoint.

The rest of the day mostly consisted of Ruth and I walking along the fire trails in Kowen Forest, occasionally venturing into the pine trees to find a checkpoint, before heading out to the trails again. The navigation was fairly simple and we found most checkpoints quickly.
Eventually Ruth suggested that we start heading back to the staging area and we did, collecting several more checkpoints along the way.

When we got back to the staging area we did a few little navigation exercises for some extra points and then handed in our control card at least fifteen minutes early, before changing into warm clothes as the sun had gone down and the cold had set in. We had a warm meal provided by the organisers and then had to leave before the winners were announced, as we both had to get back for dinners with friends. On the way out of Kowen Forest we were stopped by a locked gate. When Dave Hall came to open the gate for us, Ruth asked where we had gone wrong. Dave's response was, "You followed the traffic signs."

When we got back to Rivers Shed, Ruth packed up whilst I got changed for my dinner. As I was about to leave, the Rivers RFS crew returned to the shed and Stephen Young told us that Rivers SES had won the event ... but had been disqualified for only having two members on the team. This was a surprise to Ruth and I, especially since we had given all the other teams at least 30 minutes head start and had walked the course. It turns out that the team that came second was Rivers RFS and they had been awarded the win.
Stephen's comment that, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." turned out to be prophetic.

In summary, it was a pleasant day of easy navigation practice amongst the pines and thanks should be given to the organisers, particularly John Dowling, Mark Hallam and Colin Malone (on his last day with the SES for a few months) for a well run event. I highly recommend the event to all SES members who would like to learn or practice their navigation skills.