Orienteering – a fun Swedish sport involving running, jogging, walking, maps, controls, and so much more. Counties Manukau Orienteering, hosted sessions for the Year 7s and 8s. The Year 7s had their Orienteering experience the day before the Year 8s, who had their opportunity on Friday.
All the classes were on a schedule of events, with 1 activity each period. These events included: Motala (which is like Orienteering, but with 3 controls, and 4 maps), Contours hills, dips, etc.), 4×6 Courses (4 maps, 6 controls). Seek and Retrieve, where you have to hide a control in a particular location, and another person looks for it, and Star Relays, when you have 12 controls and get to them fastest (with a partner). Fact: all of these activities made us run and walk for over 10 kilometres around the school!
Seek and Retrieve is the hardest out of these five, where you have to partner up and one person hides a control (using the map), and your partner tries to “retrieve” it. Motala is the opposite. It is easy, with four maps, and three controls each. The 4×6 courses have 4 maps in alphabetical order, with 6 controls all around the school.
For Contours, we had to learn how to read hills, valleys, spurs, hollows, and knolls, on a normal Orienteering map. Then we had to re-create them on the Long Jump Pit, which was relocated in front of the Olive Grove earlier in the year. In Star Relays, you have to partner up, and take turns going to different controls, while using the map.
On behalf of the Year 7s and 8s who participated on Thursday and Friday, we would like to thank the Counties Manukau Orienteering Club (CMOC) for coming to Sancta Maria College, and revealing the wonders of the sport of Orienteering. We look forward to seeing them again next year!
Joshua Araos
