| Katoa Po - the Taupo all night relays By Terry Brighouse The Taupo Katoa Po event was the brainchild of Graham Teahan who was a member of the Taupo Orienteering Club in the late 1970's and the early 80's. Graham had read about the Swedish night relay teams event called Budkavle and the Australian equivalent initiated by Bjorn Blomqstedt and suggested that the Taupo Club organise a similar event in early 1981. The concept was that teams would be made up of members of mixed abilities and mixed ages, and that the camaraderie of on site camping, event centre campfire etc would be promoted wherever possible. Graham then asked some Maori friends what would it be the Maori language equivalent of "all night "and then came out with "katoa po". Having come up with the idea for the event Graham was of course then landed with organising it. Like the Australian version, the first Katoa Po began at midnight and teams were required to be made up of mixed abilities with the toughest legs being the third and the sixth - and these were open to any grade of competitor. The map used was Tauhara on the farmed foothills of a Mt Tauhara on the outskirts of Taupo; an area with a network of the erosion gullies, which provided be a real orienteering challenge at night. Only five teams entered at the first event and Taupo provided one and half of them. Taupo also provided a the winning team by just 59 seconds with Tony Trass the last leg runner just holding out for a fast finishing John Rix of Auckland over the last few controls as on the rising sun lightened the eastern sky. John was a National Elite champion and member of several new Zealand World Cup squads before returning to Great Britain. The presentation of the winners trophy was then followed by a Champagne Breakfast. The next year (1982) Tony Trass became the organiser on a new farmland map - Rangatira - near Acacia Bay on which he had done much of the mapping. The event centre was at the farm shearing shed, which was next door to the camping ground. This event generated much Katoa Po folklore. Firstly it was a real "all nighter" with the first runners being sent off at dusk and thanks to some long courses, long grass, prolific areas of thistles and the presence of some large bulls around the last control the final leg runners finished with the help of the light of the rising sun. This event was also famous for the disappearing orienteer trick. A male competitor on the first leg racing along behind a young girl competitor in the dusk was surprised to see her suddenly disappear into the ground. A closer inspection revealed she had gone down through a narrow hole into a three metre deep unmapped "tomo" which also contained a large upset black cow. A step up onto the cow and she was able to grasp her fellow competitor's hand and she was hauled off to safety, but for some reason she did not appear at future Katoa Pos. The winners of this event were the Brighouse Bush Bashers made up entirely of the members of the two Brighouse families. |