Mt Pleasant School runners travelled south over the April holidays to take part in the South Island Orienteering Championships and the South Island Schools Orienteering Championships, which were part of a week-long festival of orienteering in the Otago Region.

The South Island Championships took place in Dunedin on the weekend of the 19th and 20th of April. The Sprint course on Saturday was a great run through the open and forested areas of the Dunedin Botanic Gardens. In the Middle distance event on Sunday, the organisers took all the courses, except the youngest grade, for a drive to the top of Signal Hill and left us to find our way down. The weather was freezing all weekend but luckily both maps offered up some great fun challenges that kept everyone going to the end. In the sprint event, Mt Pleasant runners Nicholas F and Juliet F ran well for 4th and 2nd place respectively. In the Middle distance event Nicholas F unfortunately miss-punched a control so did not come through with a result, but Juliet F came through with another 2nd place.

Following the Dunedin South Island Championships event, the orienteering shifted to Central Otago and the 2018 South Island Schools Orienteering Champs, hosted by the Remarkables Orienteering club. The Long Distance Champs, held on Monday 21 April was on the Mt Iron map in Wanaka. A fantastic map offering some tight, technical challenges in and out of native scrub, rocks and single track all over the side of the mountain. Felix H, Phoebe H, Juliet F and Nicholas F all ran superbly on the tricky map with Felix H coming in 5thin the Yr 7/8 Championship Boys Grade, Phoebe H 5th and Juliet F 2nd in the Yr 7/8 Championship Girls grade and Nicholas F 2nd in the Year 4/5/6 Boys Championship grade.

The South Island Schools event finished up on Tuesday 22nd April with the Sprint Championships and Schools Relay. It was an absolutely freezing day up at Deer Park near Queenstown but the map was amazing. Runners were treated to stunning scenery, superb open terrain that included cliffs, rocks, ponds, boggy creek beds and the ever present prickly matagouri bushes to help with navigation.

Mt Pleasant School had another awesome day at the Deer Park Schools Sprint and Relay champs. In the Sprint Felix H came in 2nd in the Yr 7/8 Boys Championship grade, Phoebe H 2nd and Juliet F 3rd in the Yr 7/8 Girls Championship grade and Nicholas F 1st in the Yr 4/5/6 Boys Championship Grade. Later in the afternoon, the Mt Pleasant School relay team ran super well picking up 2nd in the Yr 7/8 Schools relay championships with outstanding runs.

Congratulations Mt Pleasant School Orienteers. Loved to see how much fun you were all having on this map and how hard you worked to stay focused out on course. Let’s aim for a really big Yr 7/8 team to the NZ Secondary Schools Orienteering Championships hosted by PAPO club Christchurch later in Term 2.