Auckland Orienteering Club member Kieran Woods has been named to manage the New Zealand World Universities Orienteering Championship (WUOC) Team. Woods, admits to being excited to be appointed to the position only, having competed at the WUOC in 2018, the year teammate Tim Robertson won Gold in the Sprint. Kieran was the 2019 Orienteering New […]

Take on the challenge of NZ’s largest annual rogaine adventure!The Great Forest Rogaine is a team navigation event with 3 and 6 hour Foot and MTB categories utilising the track network of the world famous Whakarewarewa Forest.  You are bound to go places in the forest you have never been before.This event is suitable for […]

First things first, big congrats to the organising team at Nelson Orienteering Club for hosting what sounded like a fantastic NZ Foot Orienteering Champs. By all accounts the event was a great success, with some outstanding terrain, good maps and courses, and even the weather gods smiled. Unfortunately I was not able to personally attend, […]

The 2022 Australian Orienteering Carnival is based in the Central Highlands area of Victoria and will bring competitors in range of a series of historic towns.  This article will help you work out where you might want to stay, what to visit and what to steer clear of, to make this a great holiday as well as a […]

A few insights from many of our orienteers who were participating on what is considered one of the toughest GODZone events. Craig Pelvin | Godwits: 1. How do you prepare for GODZone? Training. As a team all with jobs and families this required a lot of juggling and full team ended up only being a couple of weekends […]

After the success of Nationals 2021 and the camping options at Leighton’s Farm, NWOC wanted to put on a 2-day weekend with maps and camping all in close proximity. The old Wilson Road map, once owned by Rob and Marquita, had been nicely growing away over the last 20 years and with local contacts, permission […]

A night nav relay race for all ages   Katoa Po is one of New Zealand’s longest running orienteering events. Started in 1981, it’s seen teams from all of New Zealand do battle over Taupō’s unique volcanic terrains in the thick of night. One of the highlights of the event is the age restrictions placed on different […]

At the end of the European summer last year we were fortunate to have the World MastersMTBO Champs go ahead. It was touch and go for a bit given the rising Covid numbers at the time, and a bunch of additional restrictions were put in to keep the Masters competitors separate from the Juniors who […]

Brief club background:  Counties Manukau Orienteering Club (CMOC) sees orienteering as a special sport that you can participate in from almost any age, and over your whole life. It has the potential to be an integral part of our communities’ wellbeing, both physically and mentally. The Club has a deep passion for removing or minimising […]

Well, after 2 years of avoiding Covid like the plague (sorry), it is finally here amongst us. Certainly in my immediate family there have been several cases in recent days and weeks, including one of our boys currently, so I am writing this mid isolation. I hope for those of you also dealing with this, […]

The Lower North Island/Central regional training camp was based in the Wairarapa, giving the group opportunities to work on establishing and extending fundamental techniques on a wide variety of terrain. Coaching from Briana Steven, Joe Lynch, Kaia Jorgensen and Simon Teesdale allowed us to break the group into three cohorts based on experience and skills […]

1. Kia ora Michael, welcome to your new role. Can you talk about your orienteering background and what special skills you are bringing to this role? I first started orienteering back in the late 80s at Kaiapoi High School when I was a member of PAPO. I’ve always loved maps and can remember spending hours studying […]

This week we had an excellent meeting with the organising team for the Nationals. Despite the situation we are currently in on the exponential curve of increasing Covid cases, the team remain committed and positive about running the Nationals in Easter around Nelson. Talking with a number of orienteers in recent weeks, I think the […]

Following ONZ’s decision that it was not possible to run one large National Junior Camp, three clubs took on the role of offering junior camps.  In the next few editions we have a brief look at how these camps went, starting with the southern regional Orienteering camp for school years 9 to 13 hosted by Marlborough. […]

Well 2022 has well and truly kicked off in fine style for Orienteering, and big congrats to PAPO and Dunedin for running a very successful “Not the” Oceania Orienteering Champs and support events in Canterbury and Otago. Unfortunately I missed it through injury, but heard many positive things about the varied terrain and testing courses […]

John Gregory was a crucial early member of Central Orienteering Club, since renamed Auckland Orienteering Club. John was best known for his passion and skill at planning and organising. This was shown in his regular planning, controlling and coordinating of orienteering events from about 1977 to 1987. I also knew John from Auckland Cycle Touring […]

Well, this Compass Point marks the end of what has been quite an eventful year. There’s been some highs, some challenges, and some losses. High on the list of losses was the passing of Bunny Rathbone in early November. I know this was a loss felt keenly by many people in the orienteering community, and […]

It was great to see everyone at Tuesday’s Club Forum.  We had 13 of our 17 clubs represented as well as a number of ONZ committees, staff and Council members. Thank you ato Tom Reynolds who has led the ONZ Volunteer project and this year’s Forum. We welcome any feedback you have about the forum […]

As I write this the Prime Minister has just been announcing the new traffic light system which will come into play once the country hits the 90% vaccination threshold. It is exciting to think that this system offers us the chance to work, socialise, play, and re-connect with people whilst living with Covid in the […]

Last month we started to have a look at some of the information generated from enrollments on our national membership database. In part one we learnt that there was a significant interest in rogaine events – nearly half our members expressed an interest in a discipline which currently makes up 14% of the events offered […]

The last few weeks I seem to have been a magnet for anything to do with rules. Before I go into this, I have to declare that I’m not a massive proponent of having lots of rules – my philosophy, partly developed through my work as a business consultant, but also having a father who […]

In 1991 Orienteering Hutt Valley ran New Zealand’s first rogaine. Over time events worked up to 24hr rogaine classics and the popular 3hr after-work format was created. To mark 30 years of rogaining in New Zealand, Orienteering Hutt Valley’s  year’s Big Trig run between Fri 10th and Sun 12th Dec.  The event will consist of […]

How much do we value orienteering? Well here we are again, facing the spectre of a multi week lockdown, which a month ago was hard to imagine! My family and I were in Wanaka when the lockdown happened, primed for what promised to be one of the best powder skiing days of the season. Instead […]

While New Zealand suffers (hopefully temporarily) under another lockdown it’s perhaps worth reflecting from an orienteering point of view on how relative lucky we have been over the last 18 months in largely been able to continue orienteering. While there were hiccups along the way, such as the postponement of the 2020 ONZ Championships, compared […]

Nearly two years ago Orienteering New Zealand provided a national membership database for all clubs.  This new system replaced the historical method of reporting membership figures – the excel spreadsheet.  Through this process we have been able to better understand our membership demographics.  This information provides valuable insights about our club membership.  Despite most questions […]

On Thursday 22nd July ONZ’s Council met to discuss (among other things), the fate of the Southern Cross Challenge – an annual challenge takes place at the Australian School Orienteering Championships. Prior to the meeting a lot of work had been put into investigating and planning for a number of covid-related challenges; immunisation (not a possibility […]

All orienteers are invited to come to Tasmania, to compete in the Australian Orienteering Championships 2021.   Entries are now open.  In Tasmania we have been working hard to ensure that we will offer the very best maps and courses in our delightful and safe environment.All the information you will need to make your arrangements to […]

We are excited to announce that Wellington Orienteering Club will host this year’s Junior Camp. Wellington President Paul Teesdale-Spittle confirmed the news this week. ONZ will now work with Wellington’s Junior Camp Liaison Jane Harding to start to confirm the venue and other key details. Once the key details have been confirmed, ONZ will be […]

Talk with Christo Peters | ONZ General Manager Christo (on the right) is a good sport. Not only has he taken on the GM position with gusto for Orienteering NZ, but he answered some of our not so serious questions as well: When did you start working for ONZ? Sept 2019 What other sports have you worked in/with prior to […]

This year the U23 camp, which was a day shorter than in previous years, started on the Sunday evening of 6 December with a brief introductory talk given by Malcolm Ingham. This gives the rationale for the camp and emphasised the big step required to go from successful junior orienteering in New Zealand/ Australia to […]