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OO Cup Days 4 & 5

Sunday, 2 August 2026

Days 4 and 5 of the OO Cup were held on a hillside much closer to the main road which meant a quicker trip and much closer parking which was a real treat.  They also featured a bit of an uphill walk to the start and a downhill walk from the finish, but after the Swiss O week nothing felt as demanding so it was ok 

The terrain was lumpy, like sand dunes but covered in grass and bracken in some spots. The long grass made it pretty hard to run through if you had an early start, but we were lucky enough to have later starts and could make use of the tracks that developed during each day. 

I really enjoyed both days - actually I really enjoyed all 5 days, despite some big mistakes.  I had enough clean runs and clean legs to feel pretty good about it all. Jon had some great results over the week and finished in the top 10. Zali enjoyed most of it (not the long walks to the start), and Jett's results were pretty mixed but he enjoyed most days. 

Day 4 was our last chance to do any significant touristing so straight after the event we jumped into the car and headed to the Dingle Peninsula and Slea Head Drive.  

      

 

 

 

 

 

It was a big afternoon of driving and looking at stuff and we didn't get home until just before 11. On the way home we did an extra stop at Dunloe Gap which is usually only accessible by horse and cart (!), bicycle or foot, but after 6pm you can drive carefully in on the narrow road. By the time we got there the sun was setting and all the horses and carts were well and truly in bed.

 

 

 

Day 5 featured a similar long afternoon of driving as we headed back to Dublin straight after the orienteering but this time without  tourist stops (except for when we pulled off the motorway to find a public toilet and found ourselves in the carpark of Cahir Castle). 

We had a slight hiccup when we attempted to check into our Airbnb near the airport and I discovered I'd actually booked it for the following evening. After a quick rebooking via booking.com everything turned out fine and we stayed at a nice airport hotel instead, which meant we could return the car immediately and therefore get an extra hours sleep before our long journey home. 

After a swift and uneventful pair of flights, the kids and I are back in Melbourne while Jon went on to Hobart to relieve the house sitter of her duties. I'll be home on Thursday.

Kenmare Stroll

Wednesday, 29 July 2026

We've been staying just 1km outside of Kenmare and aside from driving through it once on the way to the Ring of Kerry, we've barely seen it, so this morning I got up early to stroll through the town before the traffic and other tourists got there.  It's a drizzly morning (hopefully it will clear before we go orienteering later on).

 

 

 

                

 

 

 

 

OO Cup Day 3

Wednesday, 29 July 2026

A much drier and clearer day awaited us today.  We were back at the same windfarm, down the same dirt road but on a different part of the terrain.  We managed to get in and out of the venue without any hassles but we won't be sorry to not have to go back to the same place again - the orienteering is great, the access is a bit of a pain!  

Zali skipped today to do school work so after our races we came back to Kenmare for lunch and to pick her up and go to check out Kilarney National Park - which lies between us and Kilarney, 45 minutes away through a mountain pass. 

Our first stop was Torc Waterfall, which was nice but nothing spectaular - the forest around it is very pretty though. On another day we might have done a longer circular walk but as everyone's legs were pretty tired we couldn't face the stairs so we just did the 5 minutes out and back to the falls.

 

      

From there we went on to Muckross House, which is a very nice estate with gardens and lots of paths leading into the park or around the lakes.  One can hire a boat or horse and cart from there (and lots of people do), to do further exploring.

 

Our last stop was Ross Castle for a quick look around.. 

 

 

 then we drove back through the pass, stopping this time to see some views on the way as the traffic had died down.

 

  

 

OO Cup Day 2

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

We were back at the same area today but it could have been a different planet with thick fog blanketing the terrain for the whole day.  

 

It made it really hard to see things in the distance which made it difficult to relocate - or at least it did for me - also I have to fight against foggy glasses in these conditions - thankfully we have 1:7500 maps so I can at least follow a compass in the right direction even if I can't read the map details!

 

 

 

 As Euan had a start 3 hours later than the rest of us we had planned to leave the event early and visit some tourist sights then come back, but on our way back to our car we came across a car that had just slipped off the road, blocking everyone behind it including us.

 

 The poor guy who was involved was mortified but luckily for him the mood around was fairly jovial as new people arrived on the scene from all different countries with fresh ideas. In the end the situation was resolved with a quad bike, a few tow ropes and lots of helping hands - the rental company never needs to know!   Unfortunately by the time it was pulled out we didn't really have time to go anywhere so we stayed to cheer Euan in from the finish. It was a pretty miserable day to do much sight seeing anyway.

 

Back at home we  brought down the tone of the neighbourhood (as usual) with our drying while we made burgers for dinner.

 

 

OO Cup Day 1

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

Because we all had very late starts we used the opportunity to drive the famous Ring of Kerry. We could have used 3 days on this but we only really had half a day so we had to skip a lot of stops near the end to make our starts. 

 

A historically significant pre AD fort 

  

 

lovely Irish beaches 

 

lovely landscapes 

 

Cliffs of Kerry 

 

Cute towns 

 

ruined castles 

The orienteering was on a windfarm outside of Kilarney. It was a fairly arduous 8k dirt road drive into the venue behind a lot of drivers who clarly weren't used to driving on dirt roads.  The arena itself was pretty unique looking:

 

The terrain was really fun.  Very grassy with lots of rocky outcrops and marshes.

 

      

We all had a fun time and made mistakes except Jon who once again had a really good run.  

OO Cup Day 0

Tuesday, 28 July 2026

Starting from Mooncoin, we packed up and left after an extensive and unsuccessful search for Zali's watch (which resurfaced the next day in one of her pockets). 

We drove to a spot for a quick hike that I'd found the night before on Alltrails - Jon, Jett and I zipped up and down the track to a cool lake where the climate was pretty wild and windy.   

 

 

Back in the car we drove to Cork where we were picking up our 5th person - Euan, who is with us this week, then we all jammed into the car for a quick tourist stop in the very busy Kinsale..

 

 

After some average fish and chips we drove straight to our accommodation in Kenmare, then up to Kilarney as we needed to make our starts for the indoor orienteering at a school. It was pretty fun.  Everyone but me did pretty well although I was happy just to finish (it's very complex). Jon managed to win which is a first for him!  Once that finished we went to the supermarket then back home to our very comfortable accommodation.  

Ireland - Kilkenny

Saturday, 25 July 2026

Three of us started the day with a short drive to some nearby woods for an 8k run. It was very smokey as there is a large fire burning to the south of us (finally we can listen to the car radio for news!). Ireland appears very dry at the moment.

     

After showers and a nice breakfast back at the 400 year old former mill cottage we are staying in we headed off to Kilkenny for a stroll around the town. We visited the castle, the design centre, the medieval mile and St Canice church. It was very pretty in parts although it would have been a lot nicer without cars going down the narrow main street as it was pretty tight on the pavements with lots of school holiday kids and parents and other locals as well as all the tourists around.   

 

 

Afterwards we drove to Dunmore Caves to do a guided tour - while I'd definitely say that Hastings Cave are more aesthetically impressive, Dumore Caves does have a mysterious human history with the discovery of a lot of human remains and viking coins inside.   The experts are mostly undecided as to whether it was the site of a massacre by vikings, or an underground burial site for  vikings or christians.  The newer thought is that it's actually one of the latter which meant the video and all the material we looked at before we went into the cave was in conflict with what our guide told us while we were down there. We listened to a podcast about it on the way home which didn't really clear it up one way or the other.  Intriguing.

       

 

While we were there we got to see a fox up close for the first time as there was a semi tame one loitering around the entrance. Apparently it's very young and without parents so it has been looked after by the locals. 

We cooked at home again, watched the highlights of the tour-de-france and now I'm waiting for the washing machine to finish before going to bed. We have a moderately early start tomorrow. 

 

 

 

Transition Day

Saturday, 25 July 2026

Somehow we managed to go from the middle of nowhere-ish Switzerland, to the middle of nowhere-ish Ireland in a day.

We started the day at 5, leaving at 5.30am for our drive which had us uneventfully at Milan Bergamo airport in good time. Actually it wasn't uneventful - we drove an amazing route through tunnels and past waterfalls and along narrow mountain roads so it was actually really good it was so early so there wasn't much oncoming traffic on the many hairpin bends we took!  Rental car dropoff and check-in went smoothly and the flight was pretty much on time so we landed  in Dublin at 4pm with a 2hour drive and a supermarket stop ahead of us.  We seem to have been really lucky with border control so far - Rome had its much maligned new fingerprint system turned off for Jon and I (somehow the kids had to do it) and getting out of Italy and into Ireland was also very fast. 

Anyway - after 4.5 hours driving on the right hand side of the road in an automatic, we switched to 2 hours in a manual car on the left side of the road relatively smoothly - Irish roads (at least the big ones) are much more like australian ones.  

Interlaken Area - Day 3

Thursday, 23 July 2026

For our last full day in Switzerland we went for a run down by the local river - we're all still feeling some muscle fatigue from Swiss O week so it was pretty slow and easy - and crucially, flat!

 

    

After a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs we headed to Strandbad Bonigen, where we spent a super fun afternoon swimming in the lake, playing on the water inflatables and paddling about on a paddle boat.  It was a great way to spend our last day in Switzerland.

 

    


Back at home it's time to do our last pack for our flight tomorrow from Milan to Dublin. We'll be leaving at 5.30 am and either arriving with hours to spare, or just making it, depending on the traffic!

Switzerland has been nice - the orienteering was an adventure (and a challenge!) but overall it was superfun. Being a regular tourist is very very very expensive and we think we've seen all we really wanted to see so we're all looking forward to Ireland starting tomorrow (traffic willing)

Interlaken Area - Day 2

Thursday, 23 July 2026

Today we were out the door by 6.45 so we could use our 'good morning' discounted tickets up to Jungfrujoch which is the saddle between 4000m peaks and calls itself the 'top of Europe'.  The discount was worth taking because a) it was soooooooo expensive and b) it made it a bit quieter, at least when we first got there.  The journey was half of the experience- we drove to Lauterbrunnen - a very popular amazing looking swiss town deep in a valley. Took a train up (and it really was UP) to another station, then another train up again to the top station.  From there we could do the 'discovery tour' and walk around and outside and see some ice sculptures and learn a little bit about the history of building the railway and also buy as many expensive watches as we wanted (we felt a little bombarded by expensive shops actually). We could resist the $3000 watches but we couldn't resist the highest lindt shop in the world! Due to our discount tickets we also had an extra hour than we really needed up there, so we took it really slow and did a couple of laps of the tour and spent some time outside.  

      

The trip down was much busier but still a lot of fun. Back in Lauterbrunnen we took a quick walk around the town but it was pretty packed with tourists and we were tired so we didn't stay too long.

 

One thing that is obvious each time I come to Europe is that the things that are spectacular and easy to do (like Lauterbrunnen), are probably going to be too busy to really enjoy, while the things that take a bit of work to get to (maybe by booking a parking spot and getting up really early like we did at Tre Cime), or a bit of sweat (like all our hikes) are the absolute best as they just aren't heaving with masses of tourists (and I acknowledge we are part of the problem in these areas of course).  Orienteering is such a great activity to do to really experience different places as we generally aren't in tourist hotspots but we get to do really cool things and see lots of stuff we wouldn't otherwise.  I think I'm more and more averse to these hot spots unless it's possible to get in and out really early or late in the day when it's less busy

I'll end this post with a couple of photos of our accommodation. We're upstairs in the very swiss style house - it's spacious but the ceiling is really really low - making Jett look like a bit of a giant as he moves around..

 

 

Interlaken Area Day 1

Tuesday, 21 July 2026

Today was a much better day for me! After a slow start we left our lovely swiss Airbnb..

 

and headed to Grindlewald where we took the breathtakingly expensive gondola to the top station where we had great views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

 

 

From there we followed the busy tourist path on the cliff walk, then 3km over to Lake Bachalpsee which is supposedly a stunning alpine lake (and it was fine I guess, just not amaaaazing).  

 

 

From there we did the really fun part which was to leave the busy area and head all the way back to the township, dropping from 2265 metres above sea level down to 1000 metres, in a bit over 10k.  It was actually a pretty gentle descent (compared to what we've done), and the top 1/3 had amazing views - we watched a farmer herd his cows back to their stables to bed, looked at waterfalls and across at the mountains - while the bottom 2/3 was beautiful, almost Nordic forests - it was a delight the whole way.  By the time we made it back to the very busy Grindlewald it was 6.30pm.

     

 

 

 

Bonneville & Tour De France

Tuesday, 21 July 2026

When Zali suggested we take advantage of the tour being near the final stage of the Swiss O Week I  knew instantly that I didn't want to be part of it.  I had waited for the tour way back when it started in the UK, and it couldn't have been more boring (in my opinion) - I believe it's one of those sports (like triathlon and surfing) that are much better enjoyed through a good TV coverage and waiting for hours on the side of a road was not my thing.

What I didn't know (but should have) was that being an assistant to the tour watchers was a LOT worse than actually watching. Our plan for me to drop them off near the top of the final climb, then pick them up after the stage concluded was, in hindsight, very flawed.  Firstly I had to drive up a narrow windy road with the bike and car traffic to drop them off and then in a much much much worse scenario, I had to return at the end of the day against the flow of traffic and 1 billion bikes (overtaking the slow traffic) to get back up to pick them up - and that wasn't even the most stressful part (although that WAS stressful). The most stressful part was at the bottom of the hill where there was traffic going in both ways while the road was almost completely blocked by parked spectator cars and then as we are squeezing past each other there are also thousands of pedestrians and cyclists trying to squeeze though the gaps that are opening and closing - it was the worst and most stressful driving situation I've ever been in.  

In between those two driving events the road closures had hampered with my hiking plan a and plan b, so I decided to walk around Bonneville until the tour came through. It was really hot (33 degrees), there was barely any shade in the whole town, the public toilet was out of Train Spotting, and aside from all of that, waiting for cyclists is SO BORING and a complete waste of a day (again, in my opinion).   I made the best attempt I could and found some nice streets and the local swimming option (a swampy lake), but really it was difficult to enjoy and I should have just stayed with the tour watchers from the start. Next time (there won't be a next time), I'll make sure to put hundreds of kilometres between myself and the race. 

 

 

 

 

 

In the meantime everyone else had a good time and scored some good tour merchandise.  Once I picked them up again we still had 3 hours of driving to do but by that time I was so cooked I resigned all driving and navigating duties to Jon and Zali.

 

 

Swiss O Week - Day 6

Sunday, 19 July 2026

Today we had our last big climb to the start and then possibly some of the nicest sections of orienteering terrain that we've had so far.

Looking back to the arena from the start

It wasn't my cleanest run but it was fine - I ended up 12th (53 competitors) over all 6 days - I think in 2019 I was 13th, but I'd say this time I had some better results with a few top 10s, while last time my placing was lifted by a good sprint race and not much else. Jon finished 13th (83) overall which was pretty good as he mispunched one event so couldn't drop another one. Jett had the hardest hand dealt to him with some races with huge amounts of climb and did well to finish 33rd overall (76) with very little training prior to our trip. Zali missed a few controls and one whole event but had a good run today.

 

After the race we took our final gondola back down the hill, then a shuttle back to our car and drove the very pretty trip to Scionzier where we just have one night then a day of watching the Tour before we head on to Interlaken.  It was nice to get here early enough to do some washing and catch up on some tv.

 

The view from our Airbnb in this otherwise non-descript town is pretty nice...well..

 

..in one direction anyway... 

 

Swiss O Week - Day 5

Saturday, 18 July 2026

It was weird but very convenient being able to  get completely ready for an orienteering event at our apartment, then just walk out the door with our compasses to the start.  

 

The forest sprint was delightfully quick - just 20 minutes and pretty error free for me, then it was a 2 minute walk back home afterwards.  

We could have spent the rest of the day relaxing but since the weather turned out to be beautiful and not storms (as predicted) we decided to grab our maps from the cancelled event and undertake the 3 chair lift journey to the arena then another to the would-have-been start area at Avoriaz which was the weirdest ski village I've ever seen. Apparently it was designed in the late 60s and definitely stands out in its environment. Despite it being summer it was absolutely buzzing with people enjoying the mountain biking and all the other activities on offer.  

  

The stage was originally going to be a sprint with a transition to a middle distance and a run back down the hill to the arena at the bottom. We all ran our sprint courses (there were no controls out)  then I took the chairlift back down with Zali and Julia who also did some filming of everyone.   Jett & Jon and our other Tasmanian friends also attempted the middle distance but bailed out after a while as the terrain was not that nice to run through.

Down at the bottom I had a delicious crepe while I waited then ordered some others for the runners before we took our 3 chair journey back to the car. It was a great afternoon.

Tonight we have to pack up and restore the apartment to its original state, then prepare for our last orienteering stage tomorrow.

Swiss O Week - Day 4

Friday, 17 July 2026

Back at the previous event centre, this time we had a chairlift ride, followed by 1.5k downhill walk to the starts, followed by our courses, then another 2.5k downhill back to the arena. 

 

A slight frustration of this week has been that the organisers keep getting the distances and/or the elevation wrong. For example the day 3 options of walking downhill for 2.2km  or 200m/60m elevation walk back to the chairlift was in fact 3.8km downhill, while the uphill alternative was 1.5km and 160 metres climb. Today the walk back was advertised as 1.5k but was closer to 2.7. I'm not sure what's going wrong but something is!!

 

Anyway - the orienteering itself was fun - not as fun as the few days before it but still lovely to be up in the alpine meadows in the sun.  I had my cleanest race but wasn't rewarded with placings as it was probably the least technically challenging of the days so far. 

After we had all made it back to the arena we used our passes to take a different chairlift up another hill to enjoy more of the sunshine and view.

 

In the late afternoon Jon, Jett and I strolled down to our local gondola to go for a joy ride - we went back up to the day 1 arena which was so quiet compared to our last visit! The views were nice although it was definitely getting cloudy in anticipation of the late afternoon's thunderstorm.

 

 

 

Tomorrow we have a 'replacement' stage around our local forest because the forcast weather has made the planned stage too risky.  Which is a shame as it was going to involve 3 chairlifts to the arena then another to the start, followed by a sprint, a transition, then a forest downhill which I was looking forward to. Oh well  - a little forest sprint is better than nothing and we have the convenience of our accommodation almost being in the finish chute!

 

 
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