Scout Orienteering Competition 2016
This Saturday, 11 patrols of Scouts from the troops of the CW12 District were gathered to take part in the annual scout-style orienteering competition, hosted once again by the Table Bay Rover Crew. This year, the event was brought back into the daylight, taking place in the afternoon rather than the evening as we’d done the previous year. The venue this year was Hoogekraal, a large farm in the Durbanville Hills region. We were lucky enough to be able to work with farm management, and the Tygerberg MTB Club, to set a fun Score-O course spread out over 9km², making it our largest area covered in a district orienteering competition to date!
The format of this competition was similar to previous ‘Scout-style Score-O’ orienteering, with patrols being given a list of 25 real world distances and map bearings that the need to plot onto a provided aerial photograp, before seeking these locations in real life. Each location is marked by a control point that the Scouts need to physically find in the real world – each control being worth a pre-determined number of points. The skill is therefore not just about mapping, but also about planning to maximise the points a team gets in the alloted time, and also a test of physical fitness to cover as much ground as possible (and to dodge mountain bikers as luck would have it).
All teams performed admirably, however there must be a winner, and this year the top positions were:
- 1st Edgemead Phantoms
- 1st Bothasig Hawks
- 1st Bothasig Kudus
- 1st Milnerton Seals
- 1st Edgemead Spitfires
- ……get the scoresheet here
We’d like to thank Damon Hope for running this event as chief judge, as well as Rovers Devon, Peter, Wesley, Darren and Russell for assisting with various aspects of the smooth organisation. Special thanks to our venue host Hoogekraal, and to our Scouters, parents and of course the Scouts who make this event fun and rewarding for us too! See you next year!
