Marcus Agnew: Orienteering great for the entire family

Orienteering takes you to some seriously cool outdoor locations, says Marcus Agnew. Photo / File

If you are looking for a fun physical and mental challenge to get the kids into, or even for yourself, then the sport of orienteering could be just the thing.

Originally designed by the Swedish as a training exercise in navigation skills for military officers, nowadays it's available for anyone right here on our doorstep.

Just last week they held an event, in and around the rocky outcrops of Park Island in Napier – set up and run by a great team of volunteers from the Hawke's Bay Orienteering Club.

If you're battling to get your kid off their devices and computer games, you can tell them orienteering is basically the outdoor version of "gaming".

Using a map, they move with stealth and speed identifying the target control points, checking in at each point as fast as they can with their techno-coded finger poker.

Once they have eliminated all control points, in the required sequence, the competitors return to the mother ship, the nerve centre of the whole operation, where they analyse an array of wall-mounted computer screens displaying their results via encrypted data fed back from each control point out in the field.

Basically, it rocks, and the Hawke's Bay Orienteering Club do a great job. They are coming toward the end of their summer series, but events run almost right through the year if you or the kids want to give it a crack.

As Hawke's Bay Orienteering say, "It's an outdoor sport for all age groups and abilities. All are welcome."

And that's certainly what was happening at Park Island last Wednesday night, all comers from old timers, shuffling along, to even the odd preschooler running along with mum or dad.

You'll notice the head bands are a real feature, as well as the men's high-cut side-split shorts – a real throwback to the 70s, great stuff.

In among all that there are some real competitors too, super fit and navigating at high velocity. And for those keen ones, there is plenty of opportunity for the sport of orienteering to take them around the world.

Teams from our schools are often featuring in world events in the northern hemisphere, Havelock North High, Napier Boys and Girls teams are regularly in the Hawke's Bay sports awards on the back of their overseas exploits.

The New Zealand Secondary Schools championships are held in Hawke's Bay in July this year, so a great event to train for and target with your school team. And who knows, if you do really well, there is the 2021 World Schools Championships in Belgrade, Serbia – wow, that sounds cool.

Marcus Agnew

Orienteering New Zealand has developed its own high performance arm, identifying and developing the keenest competitors, so the support is there for training and preparation for national and international competitions – something our Kiwi orienteers will need up against the mighty Europeans.

It's certainly an exciting and developing sport, and for you mountain bike freaks, mountain bike orienteering is now even a thing.

Aside from the high-octane adrenaline rush that comes with the techno-coded computerised finger pokers, the sport takes you to some seriously cool outdoor locations. Some of the events are held in beautiful farm locations that you wouldn't otherwise access.

The farm experience itself can be gold for the average urban homo sapien. Getting out on a good old Kiwi farm, running through the mud and rain if you're lucky, and even a bit of stock effluent is all a good experience for the kids.

So many of New Zealand's best sports athletes come from that farming background, so having the chance to get the urban kid running up and down steep hills through the sheep tracks is priceless.

So, if you're looking for that mental and physical fun challenge, orienteering could be the fix.

Aside from being a great sport itself, orienteering is a great off-season or complementary sport, for your main sport. The self-leadership and decision-making is great, and a perfect activity for building some toughness and fitness while having fun.

• Marcus Agnew is the health and sport development manager at Hawke's Bay Community Fitness Centre Trust and a lecturer in sports science at EIT.