Discussion: Saw me

Yeah I was on my way from 20-22 as it turns out since I didn't find 21 cleanly!

Also haven't you learned your lesson from Google Maps yet? The specific directions are given in Eventor :-)

Also regarding water, the tech regs says there's supposed to be water every 25 minutes and given the winning time was 71 minutes, that one water stop clearly wasn't enough. I didn't stop there since I was so disheartened about the control circle.

No I have learnt my lesson I would have had to use it regardless as I have no idea of the road names around frazzle. Might be okay saying turn left Thompson turn right dale turn left hill croft for people who know the area. But those who don't use maps + I was time poor so I didn't have a chance to look it up before leaving so certainly didn't help.

Even my OSM-based maps didn't give me the right directions (tried to go via York-Williams and South Dale) but at least it knew that Thomson and Hillcroft exist. Google Maps is completely ignorant....and oh look, the stupid new Maps has removed the nice little link to the editor.

Edit: oh wait, it does know they exist, but they're classed as 'tracks' so Maps' routing refuses to use them. There's also a weird little bit here, where South Dale Rd gets downgraded to a track for 20m, which probably ruins any chance of successful routing. I mean, I know I took that corner sideways but there's no reason to make it that squiggly. Yeesh.

Agreed on the water though - I was getting bloody thirsty by the time we hit the cave.

Yeah originally my route took me onto south dale but because I didn't trust it I changed it I get to hillcroft which caused me no ends headaches!

There's nothing about knowing the area. This is what is on Eventor:

From Perth head out of the city on the Brookton Hwy and follow for 83km after you leave the city limits and pass the 110km speed sign at Karragullen, 12 km before you reach Brookton, turn left into Thompson Road. The route from here is on dirt roads and there are sharp turns so please proceed with caution. After 3km km turn right at a T junction into Dale Road and follow for 500m until you turn left into Hillcroft Road and follow for 5.5 km until you reach the farm gate and turn left onto the Frazzle Rock map, follow signs along farm tracks for 2km km to the parking and assembly area.

It's quite specific and once you get to Thompson Rd, on Brookton Hwy, there is an orienteering sign pointing the way. It took me all of two minutes to jot down the main points onto a piece of paper before we took off on Saturday night (I ended up losing the paper between the computer and the car but I remembered the directions).

Cool story please get the link removed from Eventor that says GET DRIVING DIRECTIONS IN GOOGLE then (or similar text). My complaint is more if you put a flag on the map test the directions via that link if it doesn't match the text directions either move the I flag in the map to get the directions to match or put the flag on the map where it's on the final entry road. Thus catering on tech reliant people

You mean this note?

Driving directions from Google Maps (Always make sure to follow the organiser's driving directions.)

Don't really see how you can move the flag to make the route come from somewhere else if the flag then isn't at the correct location!!! Computer technology is only as good as the people who create it, which in this case isn't very good.

Bear in mind the flag location is also used by TBT to centre the map when you load the event.... :)

yes that would be the link :) if you re read my log youll see when I turned off - I didn't think this was right I then went and read those specific directions went back to google maps completely unaware of my location and typed in thompson road and couldn't find one. frustrated I went to the last road hillcroft and found it but I found it at the junction of groover rather than dale and the reception was poor so i couldn't load down the map to brockton to find the other end. Your points valid ricky, but irregardless of how specific the directions are people will need to use some form of map to get there. This is the only O event thats lead me wrong on maps so I havent had an issue with it to date - and had I not been working until midnight the night before and woke up and rolled into my car to leave I probably would have like usual worked it out off the text - but in the absence of time i simply loaded my mobile as i turned my car on pressed the link and started driving.

- if you where to move the flag slightly more towards hillcroft entrance eventually it would have fixed this whole issue with ti still being in the right location.

Paul I have a feature request. :P

Not likely, when I tried to force GoogleMaps to figure me out a route from Turner Hill to Hillcroft Rd (when I had thought about driving straight there instead of home first), I had to force it onto the York-Williams Rd and even then, when it got to Brookton Hwy it decided to take me west instead of east and added an extra 20km to my trip rather than going the 2km or whatever to Thompson Rd. I just don't rely on it anymore :-)

But yeah, like you I waited until we were about to leave (actually it was Tash who asked if I knew the way) before I bothered to look it up. Didn't use a map though; just followed the directions. Having said that we did come up on Thompson Rd in the dark quicker than I expected because I recalled the bit about '12km before Brookton' but we'd not yet hit the 15km marker before Brookton.

the reception was poor so i couldn't load down the map to brockton to find the other end

I know it doesn't help in this case, but for people who rely on their tech for navigation like we do it's worth having a fully offline map viewer for just this kind of situation.

It does help. Bryce can use his tech smarts to build a time machine and go back and tell himself what you have just said.

no its a valid point - I could have loaded up apple maps and ended up in adelaide.

You probably would have run out of fuel though.

true!

That would have been no good. Adelaide's O event was on Saturday.

A fully offline map viewer - that's called a road atlas :)
Technology will never trump paper...quoth the Luddite.

The pin in eventor is about 100m up the track off Hillcroft but Mr Google has a random line across the paddocks

Jenny - paper is deprecated. Didn't you get the RFC?

Richard - you're 100% right I apologize - I assumed the pin was closer to dale or york-williams but its not - google is shit!! - It looks like it doesn't recognize hillcroft/thompson as roads. and the faint lines that are there for them I wouldn't have been able to see on my mobile - can bearly see them on my computer screen - and you have to zoom to an unbelievable level to get the names of those roads!

Bryce has seen the truth of it all.

hey Ricky, where you using google maps when you tried to get to your last control? :)

Wouldn't have helped. Probably should have looked at the CP descriptions instead of guessing. I dare say TBT will show that I went to the right rock but just looked on the wrong side of it.

yes judging by your trace I think thats exactly what it will say - that would be frustrating as you where on the feature just the wrong side of it.

Should have just stuck to the track but I misread the description. I was on hands and knees going under a thicket on the north side!

Bryce this is the technology you need.

Just watched that video and it has made my day. Who hasn't at some point wanted to use a rogaine map as a blanket?

I love the bit about it being secure 'even in the Northern districts of Marseille' - similar to Rockingham or Noranda or the Western suburbs of Melbourne.