Orienteering SA offered a choice of free orienteering courses for individuals and families to do around Pakapakanthi Park and Victoria Park Wetlands as part of the Nature Festival. Pakapakanthi/Victoria Park has undergone a transformation to create a wetland with path network, boardwalks, viewing points and picnic areas, enhanced with plantings of trees, grasses and aquatic plant species.

Orienteering helpers were on hand to introduce newcomers to orienteering, and they could try courses ranging from short introductory courses from around 0.5 to 1 km, to longer ones around the wetlands.Courses used SPORTident to record course time. One of the longer courses around the wetlands is shown below.

Also offered were free children’s KID-O orienteering activities for the younger ones up to around 8 years of age.These were:

1. Number Ob- a basic maze course based on numbers
2. String courses - with controls punched selected from animal cards
3. Make your own map - of the surrounding park using orienteering symbols
4. Scavenger Hunt - find varous items in nature
5. Wombat Hunt
6. Playdough Mountains.

Each child received a card to be stamped at each activity.

Over 100 participated in all the activities, and some of the younger ones doing KID-O are below.

For Full results click here

1 Sepember, 2023: There was plenty of cheering for all orienteers, not just the placegetters, at the 2023 SA Orienteering School Relay Championships held at Thorndon Park on 1 September.

Thank you to Zita Sankauskas and her merry band of pink-hatters, and the school coaches who prepared the students for the day, and to all the teachers, parents and spectators who came along to support their schools.

Clive Arthur not only set courses with support from Marian Arthur, he marshalled the troops for the exciting Mass Start. Competitors and supporters were able to track results in near real-time, thanks to the technical expertise of Dianne Bergen and Colin Burnett using a big-screen display (hope we can do the same for the 2024 Australian 3 Days at Easter next year).

It was great to see students from 2 regional SA schools, Curamulka and Goolwa, travel from early in the morning to be there. See Facebook for more pics from the day, including winners.

Congratulations to all the winning teams. This year’s School Champions and Shield winners are:

• Primary Girls - Stirling East
• Primary Boys - St Martin De Porres
• Junior High Girls - Heathfield HS
• Junior High Boys - Urrbrae Agricultural HS
• Senior High Girls - Mitcham Girls HS
• Senior High Boys Glenunga International HS/Heathfield HS (equal

Participating Schools:

Black Forest PS
Coromandel Valley PS
Crafers PS
Curamulka PS (regional)
Echunga PS
Eden Hills PS
Glenunga International HS
Goolwa PS (regional)
Hawthorndene PS
Heathfield HS
Hope Christian College
Marryatville HS
Mitcham Girls HS
Stirling East PS
St Martin DePores
Upper Sturt PS
Urrbrae Agricultural HS
Woodside PS

Orienteering across the generations: Jeffa Lyon discusses route choice with competitors at the School Relays.

Senior High School Course, Thorndon Park Map - set by Clive Arthur

The SA Interclub relays were held at the Waite Campus of the University of Adelaide on Sunday September 24^th.  The event was presented by the Southern Arrows, the SA interstate elite orienteering team, with the courses planned by Ethen Penk, with Simon Uppill as the controller and SPORTident manager.

The Waite map is a sprint standard map, however the courses offered a variety of terrain, covering the complex of campus building, and the treed area of the Waite Reserve. 72 teams were entered, although last minute team changes were made due to late withdrawals.

The Yalanga club was the successful club, with many teams being paced as well as managing to get a high proportion of their club members entering. The other clubs placings were OHOC, WA, TT and TJ.

Results are here

Club winners - Yalanga

 One of the loops on Course 1 - campus to the arboretum

 Working in the finish

Congratulations to the junior orienteers selected in the 2023 SA Schools Orienteering Team.  The team members will compete in the Australian Schools Championships in WA in October, as well as other Australian Championship events as part of the Kambarang Carnival  For information about the carnival see the carnival website.  The schools competition has individaul Sprtnt and Long Distance events, followed by a relay, each event has races in the 4 classes for which the team has been selected.