Well it could takes pages to explain, but basically Orienteering is a competitive sport in which runners have to find their way across forests, country parks , rough country even urban areas with the aid of a map and compass. Every two years the big event in Scotland is “ The Six Day event” . 2 years ago it was in my area of Moray, this week it’s “ Royal Deeside ‘25 “ with different forests each day and 3000 competitors from lots of countries , particularly Scandinavia where it’s a big sport. It’s near Balmoral Sunday and Monday.
Today my Orienteering club were organising the starts so I had a job on instructing people at the final start line of picking up a map for their course , punching a “ dibber” to start etc. Basically you navigate from the start to Control No 1 which will be described with a symbol and number eg Large boulder , 135. Check it’s the right one then off to No 2 in a different part of the forest and so on around the course. Ignore others , they may be on a different course with different controls.
After helping I did my run, and it was really tough , hard to move through knee deep heather, but I finished it !
