Kyla Moore and Grace Cory-Wright figure out their next route on a kids orienteering course in Woodhill Forest. Photo / Guy Cory-Wright
Kyla Moore and Grace Cory-Wright figure out their next route on a kids orienteering course in Woodhill Forest. Photo / Guy Cory-Wright
Orienteering and geocaching are fun ways to venture out, even when it’s raining, discovers Sarah Ell
Want to get the kids - and yourself - off the couch this winter? Even if the weather's a bit sketchy, wrap up warm and test your seeking skills with a spot of geocaching or orienteering, or take part in a Twitter-based "treasure hunt" to exercise your body and your brain.
The rewards are there for the finding.
Geocaching
There are secret stashes hidden all around us, concealed from view and revealed to only a privileged few who have the tools and inclination to find them. This is the world of the geocacher.
Geocaching is a worldwide activity in which some people hide things and, well, other people find them. It might sound simple, but it can be highly addictive, according to Auckland enthusiast Sophie Armitage.
To get involved, all you need is a hand-held GPS or a smartphone loaded with the free geocaching app. An interactive map (geocaching.com) shows you what caches are hidden near you, their size, level of difficulty to find, and any hints to their location. There are an estimated 2.6 million geocaches around the world, including thousands around New Zealand.
Armitage herself has just over 7800 cache finds to her name, and hopes to collect her 10,000th at the MEGA (Massively Entertaining Geocaching Adventure) event she is helping to organise at Turangi over Labour Weekend 2016.
"They are usually small plastic containers, but they will always have in them a log," says Armitage. "When you find the cache, you put your details in the log, and when you get home, you log the find online and write about your journey: what took you to that place, what you found and anything else of interest."
Geocaching guys in a Cats and Dragons chase. Photo / Supplied by Sophie Armitage
Each geocacher builds up their own online list of discoveries, and the cache itself develops a history. Many caches also contain "swag" - trade items such as souvenirs or $2 Shop treasures - which finders swap as they go, or "trackables", tokens with a unique code which get moved from cache to cache to create their own journey.
Armitage says geocaching is a bit of a "nerdy sport" , but it can take enthusiasts to some amazing places, "plus I've met some incredibly talented and clever people from all walks of life."
Armitage says the pursuit is popular with families with kids, and is an easier way of getting them out of the house than suggesting going for a walk.
Anyone can also place a cache and log it online to challenge others. Armitage's tip: when placing a cache, make sure a Muggle - a non-geocacher - doesn't see you doing it.
"You want to keep the integrity of the cache - you don't want people to pick it up or move it. And when you find one, you don't want anyone to see you do it either - it adds an extra element to the game."
Orienteering
If geocaching sounds a bit geeky, orienteering provides another outdoor challenge combining navigation and exercise.
Perhaps surprisingly, winter is actually "orienteering season", says Auckland Orienteering Club president Guy Cory-Wright.
Orienteering involves finding your way around a course, marked by control points, using map-reading and compass skills. The sport attracts people of all ages, with around 50 per cent of the Auckland club's active members being families with kids who orienteer together, says Cory-Wright.
There are three orienteering clubs in Auckland, and a wide range of events are held throughout the year, including short-course events, rogaines (long-distance cross-country navigation events) and night street events. The Summer Nav series brings orienteering to parks and school grounds around the city.
Kids orienteering in the bush. Photo / Supplied by Guy Cory-Wright
The only equipment you need is some sturdy footwear and suitable clothing; you don't even need your own compass (clubs can rent you one). Being able to read a map isn't a prerequisite either - even if you struggle with a street map, you can learn to orienteer, says Cory-Wright.
"For kids particularly, it is a great adventure - for them it is a bit like a treasure hunt. Rather than just going for a walk or a run you have something else to think about - the intellectual challenge of trying to interpret what's on the map and translate that into what you can see around you."
Like geocaching, it can also be a great excuse to explore your own region and further afield. "It's not just about the sport, but the places you can go and the people that you meet," says Cory-Wright.
On the hunt
My nearly-five-year-old son Florian and I try geocaching for ourselves, meeting Sophie Armitage at the Churchill Reserve between Mairangi and Rothesay Bays on the North Shore.
Armed with Sophie's handheld GPS and mobile phone with the geocaching app, we head off into the park and what we think is the direction of the first cache. After a short detour down the wrong track, we scrabble about under a tree and voila! We have found our first geocache.
Sophie adds her details to the logbook and places a small plush toy attached to a trackable tag in the cache box, then we head off towards the next one, a couple of hundred metres down the path. Florian is very keen to uphold the rule about not letting "Muggles" see what we are up to and shoots off into the bushes whenever runners or walkers approach on the walkway.
The second cache is also hidden in some tree roots, but the third one is a bit harder to find: we have to poke around in a patch of scrub to find the cleverly camouflaged container. This time Florian is very excited to find that it contains "treasure" - marbles, flat glass beads and even a plastic frog.
Our first geocaching experience has been very successful, and Florian is very keen to try it again, to add a layer of interest to just about any outing, anywhere.
Inter-schools orienteering competition. Photo / Supplied by Thomas Stolberger, Guy Cory-Wright
Tweets for treasure
For those who like to combine technology and puzzles with their hunting, Aucklander Louis Gutry runs regular Twitter-based "treasure" hunts around Auckland (and, recently, Wellington). Gutry was inspired by a similar hunt organised in the capital in 2009 by a jilted lover who wanted to get rid of an unrequited diamond engagement ring. He has been organising hunts of his own about every six weeks since last September.
Clues are posted online via Twitter every half hour from 10am on a hunt day, with searchers following the trail to find a specially minted coin.
"I decided to have some sort of 'treasure' for people to find, so it is a coin about five or six centimetres in diameter, in a nice little box," Gutry says.
Gutry says so far the hunters have usually been groups of friends working in a team, and interests in the events is growing as word gets around. He has also recently been asked to design a custom hunt for a private company. No need to register, just follow @hunt_clues on Twitter during the day, or visit the Hunt Blog (t-hunt-blog.blogspot.co.nz/). Today's treasure is a limited-edition Hunt Coin, hidden somewhere in the city.
The Hunt - Twitter Treasure Hunt, today, 10am-3pm.
check out geocaches near you at geocaching.com, or see the Geocaching New Zealand page on Facebook. Planning is under way for the October 2016 New Zealand Mega (Massively Entertaining Geocaching Adventure) in Turangi. See
. You can give it a go tomorrow at the Auckland Orienteering Series Woodhill event, 10am-12.30pm. It's open to all, with a range of courses; free entry for first-timers.
