Muddy terrain made a fun but challenging cross country course for primary school children from across the Bega Valley on Friday, May 13.
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The Far South Coast zone cross country event was hosted by Wolumla Public School at the village's recreational grounds.
Wolumla Public School teacher and event organiser Stacey Defina said despite the terrain being muddy and wet, they had a beautiful sunny day.
"It was an excellent day even though the conditions were really muddy and we had a lot of kids that lost their shoes in the mud and were walking around with one shoe on," Ms Defina said.
Fourteen schools were represented at the cross country event, including Bega Valley Public School, Bemboka, Bermagui, Candelo, Cobargo, Eden, Merimbula, Pambula, Quaama, Tanja, Tathra, Towamba, Wolumla and Wyndham.
Ms Defina said they had a great turnout of competitors on the day as well a large crowd of parents that came to support their kids.
The overall school winner was Bermagui and the winner of the small schools category was Wolumla.
Runners who placed in the top five in each age group will now travel to the regional carnival in Nowra on June 10.
Ms Defina said the 2022 cross country was their first year they ran a official multiclass category.
"We had two competitors in that category this year and they will also go through to the next round," she said.
Ms Defina said the multiclass category allows children with disabilities be it physical or intellectual, to compete in their own category.
"We had a junior multi class winner, Lochie Ketteringham and the senior winner was Travis," she said.
Both winners were of the multi class category were from Wolumla Public School.
"We're trying to encourage other schools to get their multiclass kids classified in the future, so that they can go on to compete and they can go right onto the state level."
Ms Defina said they were "very grateful" to the help of their Parents and Citizens association (P&C) along with the generous donation of Pambula Bakery, Wild Rye's, which let the school borrow their coffee machine on the day.