SS6 Nowra cancelled due to rain

Sunday, 25 September 2011

Mountain Devils MTBO Club apologises to all of you who came to Nowra for the MTBO SuperSeries on Sun 25 September. 

Camped out at the event centre, light rain overnight was but a mere foretaste of the rain that began falling more heavily at about 5.45am this morning.  Coursesetter Andy Halliday headed out at 6am to put out the rest of the controls, whilst I snuggled deeper into my swag and tried to ignore the heavy rain beating down on the faithful red canopy of our rego tent above me.  As 7am approached, I dragged myself out of bed to gaze on the sea of mud surrounding us.  Michael Roylance provided ominous updates on the weather radar using his phone until Andy returned with a grim expression on his face.

"It's very muddy out there", he said, in the understatement of the day.  "I think we need to cancel".  Quick discussion ensued, and by 7.15am I was busy loading mobile numbers into my phone for a group text message announcing the bad news.

Over the next couple of hours, half a dozen participants drove into the event centre to receive the bad news; others sent text messages thanking us for the cancellation notice.

In hindsight, we absolutely made the right call.  22mm of rain fell in Nowra between 6am and our planned event start time of 9.30am, and a total of 30mm between 6am and 11am.

Forests NSW have previously indicated that our permit for events in this forest will be cancelled if 25mm of rain fall in the 48 hours preceding an event - so technically, we'd have been in breach of our permit if we'd continued with the event - let alone how much damage we'd have done to the tracks - and to the drivechains and tempers of all participants.

Thanks to all entrants for your understanding of our need to cancel - we're planning to reschedule this event into the 2012 MTBO SuperSeries - hopefully in May.

David West
Secretary, Mountain Devils MTBO Club