Message from President Gene Beveridge

Kia ora all. Massive thanks to our major organisers for our 2nd event for the year at Riverhead Forest; Andrew de Lisle and Paul Ireland for the courses and Lisa Mead for coordinating our volunteer workers. We need these volunteer workers to set up tents and IT, run rego, and pack up, and we reward these workers with free entry vouchers. If you want to join the team for our next event, just email Trevor Carswell (cloneone44@gmail.com) and we’ll give you a job that works for you.

Newsletter Contents

• New training map in Riverhead Forest

• Calendar of Events in Auckland for 2023

• Next NWOC Events

• Rogaine Series 2023

• Event Reports

• Schools Orienteering - Auckland Secondary Schools Sprint Series

• North West Membership Fees now due

• Member News

• New Members

New Training Map in Riverhead Forest

Don't despair if you found the orienteering in Riverhead Forest a challenge; the hot weather, muddy tracks and thick vegetation made some of the courses tougher than usual. If you would like to take your time and revisit some of the checkpoints in Riverhead, then we have created a training map, complete with orienteering flags (no numbered standards).

Make up your own training course from a selection of controls on the map.
Controls 30 - 39 are easiest (Yellow level)
40 - 47 are intermediate difficulty (Orange level)
48 -67 are hardest (Red level)

The new Robinson Road Training map is now available to download from the NWOC website. Please note that access to the forest is at your own risk and you are responsible for your own safety. Be aware that there may be forestry or logging activity, mountain bikers or motor cycling events taking place (and the Riverhead Backyard Relaps Ultra running event starting on 01 April).

In the NWOC website, go to the Resources / Coaching tab - then to Permanent Courses - then Training map

Select Training maps and click on Download map.

It is planned to leave the flags out for at least March/ April 2023.

2023 Event Calendar

All upcoming events in the wider Auckland area are listed on our NWOC website here
New Zealand wide events are on Orienteering New Zealand’s website here
Check the links above for details of events coming soon.

Coming up soon…

Sunday 19 March         Build Up Sprint #2 at Glendowie College - Enter here by Saturday 18 March

Sunday 02 April             Kelland Road ( near Waiuku) Event. Interesting sandune/ farmland terrain map with great views over the Tasman Sea. If you found Riverhead terrain difficult, this map is less intimidating as it is more open with extensive views. Please pre-enter on EnterO soon.

7-10 April          Easter Multi-day event in the Manawatu. The National Champs in Hawkes Bay have been postponed but the Wellington clubs are offering an urban sprint plus 3 events in excellent sand dune pine forest near Waitarere Beach. Pre-enter by 26 March.
Website: https://www.oevents.nz/easter23/
Entries: https://entries.wellingtonorienteering.org.nz/enter/742b472e-8fa7-455e-89f1-fb9e0ad99416

Next NWOC Event for 2023

• Development Forest Event @ Kereta Dunes, Woodhill Forest, Sunday 16 April

• A much loved map for orienteering, the Kereta event offers the very best of Woodhill Forest’s superb technical pine forest with complex contour detail for the red courses to gentle, easy-going flatter areas in clean white forest -something for everyone!

• Select from a range of 7 courses of varying length and difficulty. Suitable for all ages, levels, and beginners.

White Very easy

Yellow Easy

Orange Moderate

Red 1,2,3 Technical courses for more experienced orienteers

Purple Technical but less physically challenging course aimed at older orienteers

• Start times are between 10am to 12:00 midday. If you would like to do more than one course - please ensure you restart before 12:00 midday.

• Note that we will be parking at Leightons Farm (off Wilson Road, south Head) and there is a 2 km easy walk to the event centre, so please allow time.

• Course closure is 2pm. Please plan your start time to ensure you return to the finish by course closure time.

• Pre-entry will be required for this event on Enter O here.

More details to come about both this event on our North West website and our Facebook & Instagram pages.

Rogaine Series for 2023
 

Back for the 12th year, our famed Auckland Bivouac Outdoor Rogaine Series website for 2023. This year's series of three 90 minute Foot Rogaine Events will be held on

Sunday 7 May - Slater Road, South Head
Sunday 21 May - Karaka Swamp
Sunday 11 June - Grass Track, Muriwai
 

All event info will be posted on our North West website here https://www.nwoc.org.nz/rogaine-series/
Hover on the words Rogaine Series to see the drop down menu for more info.
NB All info about the rogaine series will now be on the North West website. The previous, independent rogaineseries.co.nz website is no longer available. Likewise, on social media, all rogaine series info will be posted on our North West Facebook and Instagram pages.
Entries will open soon on Enter O. Check here https://entero.co.nz/evento.php

Auckland Secondary Schools Individual Champs Tuesday 30 May

This event will be managed by Shaun and Madeleine of Lactic Turkey Events with support from host club NWOC. We would love club members to come out to beautiful Leightons Farm (by Lake Kereta) and help out with manpower. We will need to fill roles from Start people to collecting controls.

Event Reports

North West has hosted the first sprint and forest events of the Auckland season - both successful events despite everything that Auckland’s “summer” weather threw at us.

Rosmini College/ AUT Akoranga Campus Sprint 19 February
Planner Thomas Stolberger/ Controller Daniel Monckton

Originally scheduled for the 12th of February, the dire warnings about the imminent Cyclone Gabrielle prompted us to make a last minute postponement to the following Sunday. Many parts of Auckland were impacted by the cyclone and the course map developed some new water and landslip features.

A fine, hot day saw many orienteers make the most of the two sprint maps with an interesting connection via the bus station overbridge across the Northern Motorway.

Robinson Road, Riverhead Forest 26 February - A tale of Two Bridges
Planner Andrew de LÍsle/ Controller Paul Ireland

Andrew and Paul began planning well in advance for our first forest event of 2023, creating new tracks in the forest to give the white/ yellow and orange courses more interesting options. Several club members joined them on 21 January to create a wooden bridge across a stream, connecting the two halves of a new track. We were all pretty proud of bridge Version 1 until…. 27 January saw Auckland completely inundated with a one in 200 years rainfall event, causing much devastation.

Sadly our bridge was a victim of the flooding. A few trees also fell down across the stream, and there were some extensive slips but none impacted the courses too much. Bridge construction team # 2 met on 18 February, shortly after Cyclone Gabrielle and created the new improved bridge Version 2 (using materials salvaged by Andrew from the 27 January floods in Torbay).

Then along came another localised weather event on Friday 24 February. Andrew and Paul were putting out control flags in the forest and only just made it home before all the roads around Riverhead were flooded and the gentle forest stream became a raging torrent.

Back in the forest on Saturday to finalise the courses before the event on Sunday, they discovered the worst - bridge Version 2 had disappeared and flooding damage was evident! There were panic stations for a while until they managed to un-dam a large pooled up section of the stream and reveal the bridge, which had been washed a few metres downstream.

It was reinstated (Version 2.2) and our set-up crew on Sunday did minor repairs and laid down the green carpet for a non-slip exit.

The Sunday of the event was hot and sunny and saw a great turn out of orienteers, who got their money’s worth with some very muddy tracks, steep and often technical terrain and thick vegetation making for longer running times

If you would like to experience more of Riverhead Forest you may like to make the most of the training map and walk some of those new tracks and check out the marked control sites.
21 January: Bridge # 1;   18 February: Bridge # 2;   25 February: Andrew looking for the missing bridge the day before the Riverhead event.

Member Help Needed Please

We need help from all members please for all the events that North West will host this year. There are many opportunities to get involved from course planning to helping set up the event centre - there is a lot to be learned from doing so no matter what role you have. Plus you also get to meet and know Club Members - we’re a friendly bunch! And Club Members who regularly help with events are given vouchers for reduced entry fees for other North West events.

If you're interested, please contact Club Captain Rob Garden rgmg@xtra.co.nz or 021597070

Schools Orienteering - Auckland Secondary Schools Sprint Series

The 5 week Auckland Schools Sprint Series for 2023 is drawing to a close and on 26 March the top qualifying students from each of the five regions of Auckland will compete in an Auckland Regional Final (2 events on one day). We wish all NWOC members the very best in this competition.
More details can be found here: https://schoolsorienteering.co.nz/secondary-schools-sprint-series/

North West Membership Fees for 2023 are due now please

Thank you to all who have paid their membership fees for 2023. If you have not yet done so, please note that members rates are unchanged for 2023.

And there is more … as in 2022 we are again offering a combined deal of club membership/rogaine entry fee that offers good savings for those who love our rogaine series. We have 3 rogaines planned for 2023.

The new combo deal means you effectively get free entry to one rogaine – plus all the benefits of club membership.

To ensure you get members’ rates at all orienteering events, please pay your fee as soon as possible. Existing members can simply credit the club bank account (WESTPAC Account 03-0243-0247251-000 and include your name in the reference field.) No need to log in or re-register.

Those selecting the membership/rogaine combo deal will receive a credit voucher before the start of the rogaine series.

Member News

NWOC fielded a 7 person team in the recent Katoa Po night relays held near Taupo. While the team just missed out on a podium place (4th), all agreed that it was a great social experience and we plan to come back bigger and better in 2024. Special shout out to Tahi Harris who was the fastest runner on Leg 2.

Rob Garden and Lesa Lomas took out the honours in the Katoa Explorer Night Rogaine.

Last weekend, new club member Jonathan Ash ran a very impressive 13 hours 20 mins in the 73 km solo Ring of Fire ultramarathon, a gruelling circumnavigation of Mount Ruapehu on the Round the Mountain track ( 3370 metres of ascent and descent). Kudos!

New Members

A warm welcome to new Jonathan and Kerry Ash and all our new members from Pinehurst School.