For safety reasons there will be a minimum amount of gear and equipment that each person must carry or wear at all times. The event is in a high alpine environment and weather can change rapidly, temperature can drop quickly and visibility can be reduced within minutes if clouds layers descend.

Acceptance of your entry means that you have read and will adhere to this code of conduct throughout this Rogaine.

This Code of Conduct is motivated by the following two considerations:

• respect for the property and lifestyle of landowners
• safety of event participants, organizers and helpers, and others affected by the event, including assistance for injured people.

Land, Environment, Property and Stock

Rogaining is an environmentally and socially friendly activity and we expect all participants, including event organisers, to reinforce this ethic.

• Respect the right of landowners to operate their business and lifestyle in privacy and security.
• Leave gates as you found them.
• Do not crowd or otherwise disturb stock.
• Cross fences at gates or major posts, or go through the wires.
• Do not drop litter.
• Avoid houses and accessory buildings and/or machinery and stay out of out-of-bound areas.
• No dogs, guns, fires or smoking.
• Report any damage or disturbance you may have caused, or seen.
• Keep streams and water bodies clean
• Take due care to avoid spread of weeds, pest or diseases (e.g., Didymo)
• Note that access approval to land for an event is limited to the event duration. It does not extend to before or after the event.
• Event organisers will respect individual landowner attitudes to access to private land, and will strive to maintain good relationships with landowners at all times.

Event participants will also abide by other conditions that may be set out in instructions for specific events.

Safety and Injury

• • Distress call – six or more short whistle blasts at about 1 second intervals, repeated every 1 to 5 minutes, or in reply to a Search call.
  • Search call – one long whistle blast of several seconds.
  • If someone in your team is immobilised, identify your position and send someone to seek help. If possible, leave someone else with the injured person, along with all spare clothing. For urgent assistance, use your whistle to give the distress call.
  • Any team hearing the distress signal MUST offer all assistance required.
  • If someone in your team is injured, but can walk, use your common sense in getting them back to base.

Safety – legislative requirements

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 much private land (e.g., farm land) is designated ‘workplace.’ Landowners must inform recreational visitors of significant workplace hazards. To ensure this:

• • Event organisers will elicit advice from the landowner or manager on safety hazards, preferably at both the course planning stage and several days before the event.
  • Event organisers will inform all participants of any such hazards relevant to the event in written or verbal briefings.
  • Organisers, course planners and participants will take reasonable care that their actions (or lack of action) do not put themselves or others at risk. They will comply with reasonable safety advice or instruction given by the landowner (usually via the event organiser), as far as they’re able to.

NOTES TO THE CODE

Gates and Stock

If you open a gate, your team must close it or identify a person in a following team who will explicitly state that they will close it. If you corner stock, move no closer than 50 metres and find an alternative way round. This is particularly important when the easy way out for the stock is towards you on a track. Drop below the track and sidle around well clear of the stock. Stock in the wrong place at the wrong time of year can easily cost farmers tens of thousands of dollars, and cattle in particular are surprisingly easy to spook, and will readily demolish a good fence, injuring themselves badly on the way. If you cause any damage, it is vital that you report it to the organisers as soon as practicable, so that repairs can be started.

Safety

Understand the Distress call and the Search call. Serious injury is very rare, but needs urgent action. For the more common injuries where people can still limp, use your common sense. This usually means assisting them to a road and returning to the hash-house.