What is Orienteering?

Orienteering is a sport that welcomes participants of all ages and experience levels. Whether you’re an elite athlete, a recreational runner, a young child, or even over 90 years old, orienteering offers something for everyone. It’s an activity the whole family can enjoy together.

While learning the basics is straightforward, the challenges in orienteering can be endless. It combines physical exercise with intellectual challenges, earning it the nickname “cunning running.” In orienteering, competitors use detailed maps to navigate unfamiliar terrain, typically visiting several designated control points along the way.

Foot Orienteering

In foot orienteering, participants navigate courses marked with orange and white flagged control markers corresponding to points on the map. The goal is to visit all the control points in numerical order as quickly as possible. Speed alone won’t win the race—you also need to choose the best route and find the markers efficiently.

Fitness Level

You can walk, jog, or run—alone or in a group—depending on your preference. While fitness can enhance your performance, especially in competitive orienteering, it’s not a necessity. You can treat orienteering as a race or a leisurely stroll, with the search for controls adding an extra element of interest.

What to Wear

Dress in comfortable clothing suitable for walking or running in farmland or city parks. Any type of walking or running shoes will be OK. For events in areas with dense vegetation, full-body protection may be required, and we’ll inform you of this before the event.

Course Difficulty and Duration

Your course choice and personal fitness level will determine how long it takes to complete a course:

• White (Easy Navigation): Mostly on tracks, ideal for beginners and young children.

• Yellow (Intermediate Navigation): Slightly more complex, with some cross-country shortcuts. Suitable for older children and adults.

• Orange (Advanced Navigation): Mainly off-road, involving features like hills and vegetation. Best attempted after trying a few Yellow courses.

• Red (Hard Navigation): For experienced orienteers, involving complex map reading and challenging terrain. Reds usually come in three lengths: Short (3-4 km), Medium (4-6 km), and Long (6-7+ km).

If you’re unsure of your skill level, start with a White course and progress to Yellow if it feels too easy.

Understanding Orienteering Maps

Orienteering maps are different from other maps in many ways, for example their north lines point to Magnetic North, and the scale of the map is usually much larger than other kinds of map, so a lot more detail can be shown. When you first see an orienteering map, take a good look at the legend, which tells you what the symbols on the map mean. They generally appear in only five colours:

• Black symbols are the most important for a novice orienteer.  They show man-made features like roads, tracks, fences and walls, as well as rock features like boulders and cliffs.

• Blue shows water features, either larger obstacles like lakes, rivers, sea and marshes, or smaller details like ditches, water troughs and streams.

• Brown shows the shape of the land, mainly by use of contours.  A contour is an imaginary line connecting points of the same height.  When you are going up or down hill you will be crossing contours.  Contours may initially be difficult to understand, because they’re not actually painted onto the ground!  So you have to imagine them.  As your orienteering improves, the information in the contour shapes will become both easier to understand and more important to you.  Don’t worry if they look like meaningless squiggles at first.

• White - One peculiar feature about orienteering maps is that trees which you can run through or under are shown as white; only denser bush or undergrowth is shown as green, in different shades.  The darker the green, the more difficult the vegetation is to get through.

• Yellow is used to denote open areas.

What to Expect at an Event

You will need to register on the day, at the registration desk, usually located in our black tent.  Most events will be ‘Sport ident’ events (an electronic timing system, more info here).  Let us know at registration if you are new to orienteering and need some instruction. There is usually a friendly and experienced orienteer floating around to help anyone who needs it, just ask!

At registration you will need to fill out a form which gathers some important safety information, and sign a Health & Safety and Publicity statement.  Then, to the person on the computer, you will provide your name, which course you will do and how many people in your group.  Cash will be needed on the day to pay for the event fee.  You will then be allocated an e-stick and a map.  Grab your compass (if needed) and a whistle as well, and you're ready to start. 

You can start anytime you like in between the allocated start time (usually 11.30am-1pm).  Make sure you, or your team, will start at a separate time from everyone else on your course. 

You will need to CLEAR and CHECK (further explained here) then, make your way to the START flag, where there will be a Start control you need to punch when you are ready to start.  Navigate the marked course taking any route between controls, but in the correct numerical order, and clip/ ‘bip’ your e-stick at each control (including the START and FINISH). 

• Before punching confirm that you are at the correct control – there are other controls out there that may not be on your course.

After finishing, always report to the finish, even if you didn’t complete the course, so we know you’re safe.

Safety Tips

If Lost: Retrace your steps to a known location. Stay put if necessary, and wait for searchers at a control point, track, or landmark.

Event Rules: No smoking, fires, or littering. Dogs are only allowed if permitted.

Further resources

https://www.orienteering.org.nz/coaching-framework/