Now, the Dunedin Orienteering Club is celebrating its golden jubilee with high-tech electronic timing and complex courses in the Middlemarch hinterland over Waitangi weekend.
Club president Myles Thayer said the three-day celebration honoured the organisation’s status as the first orienteering group founded in the South Island.
The action begins tomorrow with a sprint event near Sutton.
Competitors will face a unique challenge on the property’s terrain.
"It is at Mount Ross Station on a piece of land that they have, which is an old gold mining area, so it is quite small and complex for navigation."
The focus shifts to Gladbrook, near the Salt Lake Scenic Reserve, on Saturday for a traditional six-course classic competition.
This event doubles as the club’s first Orienteer of the Year series and is part of the National Orienteering Week series, attracting elite runners from across New Zealand.
Participants will then gather for a dinner at the Middlemarch Hall that night, including two of the club’s founding members, Judy Wilson and Pat Ehrhardt.
"They are still around and still, well, they don’t participate in the sport, but they are still interested."
The weekend wraps up on Sunday with a novelty race at Sutton.
Mr Thayer said the sport had evolved significantly since July 1976, when Leo Homes created a map of Bethune’s Gully and he and Janet Dobbie ran an orienteering challenge.
"A few weeks later, at the Harrier rooms at Chingford Park, nine people turned up and they formed a club."
Orienteering is a form of cross-country running where the course is presented to participants on a chart moments before the race begins.
"So you only have a map and a compass, and you go out and you follow the course as it is laid out on the map.
"Originally, they would paint the lids of tin cans and put them out with a two-digit number or two letters on it, and you had to use a pencil and paper to write it down," he said.
Contemporary racers use finger-strapped electronic recorders to log their progress instantly.
"Really good orienteers are running and reading their map and doing this perceptual skill of picking off in their mind where they are, all at speed," Mr Thayer said.
For those inspired to try, the group is hosting a ‘mini rogaine’ urban challenge, suitable for beginners, starting at 1pm on Sunday, February 22, at the Kirriemuir St playground in Maryhill.
