Forest Event 6: Tāpapakanga Regional Park

A fun morning of foot orienteering around one of our beautiful coastal regional parks.

Event info

• Date: Sunday 15 June 2025
• Location: Tāpapakanga Regional Park, 95 Deerys Road, Orere Point
• First starts: 10am
• Last starts: 12pm (noon)
• Course closure: 2pm
• Terrain: Open farmland with several forested gullies. Some small rock clusters in open fields. Expect hilly terrain. Great swimming at the finish if the tide is in!
• Entries: via entero.co.nz

Courses available

• Red 1 – 5.8km
• Red 2 – 5.0km
• Red 3 – 4.3km
• Red 4 – 3.8km
• Purple – 2.7km
• Orange Long – 3.3km
• Orange Short – 2.9km
• Yellow – 2.6k
• White – 1.7km

Helpful to know

Orienteering – on foot – you choose your pace. Usually as individuals but groups can go together! Select from a range of 9 courses of varying length and difficulty. Suitable for all ages, levels, and beginners. Some children need to be accompanied by an adult, so please choose courses carefully.

You may start any time between 10am to 12pm (noon). If you would like to do more than one course, please ensure you restart before 12pm – come back to Registration to get a new ident before you collect a new map at the Start.

Courses close at 2pm unless otherwise stated on the day. Please plan and ensure you return to the finish by course closure time. You must download at the Finish tent, even if you do not complete your course (so we know you’re back and don’t send out a search party!).

Advice for those new to forest orienteering

We encourage you to choose your course carefully. Transitioning from sprint and/or park orienteering to forest orienteering requires new skills; Difficult sprint courses are not comparable to Red forest courses.

Tip: If you are a beginner orienteer or this is your first time, we recommend starting with a White course. If you have any questions about whether you should *really* be doing that Red course when you’ve never orienteered before, please come see our friendly volunteers at Registration and we can talk about it! 

Forest orienteering relies on contour reading – Orange level requires an understanding of contours and being able to read and use contours as part of your navigation. Red courses require you to be able to read intricate contour details and again use these when navigating your course. We know it’s tempting to aim high and tackle a red course however our advice is to gain experience and master Yellow and then Orange courses first.

Here is some info about the course colours

• • White – Very easy. Controls (= checkpoints) are on tracks or linear features such as fences, streams etc.

• • Yellow – Easy. Controls are on or visible from linear features such as tracks, fences, streams and vegetation boundaries.

• • Orange – Moderate difficulty. You should only choose an orange course if you have successfully completed Yellow courses. The course will offer route choice to controls which are NOT on tracks. You should understand contours and be able to use a compass to determine direction.

• • Red 1, 2, 3 & 4 – Difficult, technical courses for more experienced orienteers. You should only choose a red course if you have successfully completed several orange level courses. Courses have route choice, areas of complex detail, and small point features.

• • Purple – Technically difficult (like red courses) but less physically challenging courses aimed at older (wiser, experienced, all-around fabulous) orienteers.

Any questions, please email info@cmoc.co.nz and we’ll do our best to help!