Orienteering

Note that this entry is also by Isaac...

In the weekend I went out of Waiheke and into Auckland! We drove and drove. Finally we were there! A wide open field and that field was big all right. And that field and that field was a.... an orienteering field! If you ask me what orienteering means it means that you split you up with people in your family. One has the compass and one has a map of the field and that map has lines that move with the compass so then you know where you are unless you are not on the path. There are numbers on the map because you have this thing you put on your middle finger and beep it on these things that have circles on the map.

More notes from his mom now.

Bryon and Pascal introduced us to this great sport and it's been a fabulous weekend family activity. It's a treasure hunt through a forest where we try to locate as many of these checkpoints as we can within 90 minutes. You get points for each control you "beep", and you lose points if you're late.

I love wandering through a forest, and searching for controls is extra incentive. We've done three of them so far. The first one was through a dense forest (pictures here). The second one was wide open fields (described above), and the third one was on very steep terrain in both forest and open areas.

This is also an athletic event. The winners are usually very fit, sprinting from control to control, gracefully leaping the electric fences, and can usually find all 30 controls within the time limit. We're not there yet, but we'll have fun in the mean time.