Orienteering With Weston School

On Thursday afternoon, Ross, Maurice and I met the two girls and six boys at Weston School who were taking part in a programme of being in the outdoors. Previously, they had participated in three different tramps in the Herbert Forest, so some instruction on the use of a compass, maps, locator beacon and GPS was in store for them for the afternoon.

Firstly, Maurice explained how to find North with the compass and then in pairs and with a compass each they did a little exercise on Weston Park. Once the four GPS’s were distributed to each couple, they were eager to put them into use. A course of ten way points had been set around the school grounds and the Park, with some lollies and chocolate bars hidden at two of them. The ten waypoints had been loaded into the GPS’s and with some instruction, the teams took off in various directions.By 3pm all teams had arrived back to “ homebase” successfully finding the waypoints and hidden treasures. Ross then handed out some maps he had printed off for them to do a little excercise at home.

Thanks to Stacey, Nakayla, Alex, Tony, Michael W, Michael A, Dillion D, and Dillion H for taking part and showing so much enthusiasm in the exercise.

Phyllis.