On Sunday the 18th of May the Manawatu Schools Individual Championships were held on Northbrook-Puketawa Farm near Palmerston North. This was the first time in many years that the school championships have been held outside of the Victoria Esplanade in central Palmerston North. The reason for this change of location was to cater for our more able Red Kiwi Junior orienteers to further develop their skills. Also, so that the students have more of an understanding of the level they would be competing at if they should enter the yearly North Island Schools Competition and the NZSS Competition. We were very pleased with the number of students that took part, especially as it was the first year we held the event on a Sunday in conjunction with a Club event, not on a school day. and at a different out of town location. We had 26 different schools taking part. This included 7 new schools to the competition. We had an even split of students at the different age groups – Secondary, Year 7&8 and Primary. It is particularly pleasing to see the increasing numbers in the lower Secondary school grade.

Carol Ramsden was the planner for this event and she described the map as “mostly grassy farmland with many fences, and a few very tiny blocks of forest, basically on long parallel plateaus with steep descents down into muddy seasonal watercourses. Inquisitive heifers and a few frisky steers added to the interest. It was challenging to set Red level courses due to the openness of the terrain and the many fences, but the difficulty was increased by having lots of changes of direction, choices between either lots of climb or contouring around and by having very long legs”.

Despite challenging weather conditions on the day we had a good number of students attend and have had positive feedback from families and schools. It was great that this event could coincide with World Orienteering Week.