A real adventure better than Pokemon Go!

What do you get when you combine Pokemon Go! with Amazing Race? The sport of rogaining!
An off-shoot from the sport of orienteering, rogaining sees pairs of participants searching for checkpoint flags.
They are given a map of the area on which the location of the flags is marked. Their challenge is to find as many of them as possible before their time is up. This ro-gaining event is organised annually by the Rand Orienteering Club and this is the first time that the event has been in the Parys area.
The annual rogaining event took place on Saturday 3 September, starting from the      Morala venue, just off the Venterskroon road. The 6-hour course participants were the first to start, with the three-hour and 90-minute participants setting off later in the day. Parys local, Lisa de Speville, invited her friends from Rand Orienteering Club to this area to present this year’s event.
“Since 2003, our rogaining events have been held in the forests of Lakenvlei, Kaapschehoop and Lydenburg. They’re all  quite a drive from Jo’burg, which is where most of the participants come from. This area is excellent for rogaining and is so much easier for participants to access,” Lisa says.
“Ian Bratt and Glen Terry organised and planned the event. They came out here a few times over the past two months to explore the area and look for suitable places for the checkpoints. Ian spent many hours creating an excellent map for the event.”
The event took place on the Buffelskloof farm, with its steep hills, valleys and rugged kloofs.
The terrain includes a combination of open ground, which is easy to traverse, challenging rocky slopes, forested valleys, and a good scattering of thorny bushes and trees.
Nicholas Mulder and Piers Pirow located every checkpoint and won the six-hour course.
They covered 21 kilometres, with 1000-metres of elevation gain, in only 3 hours 40 minutes! The women’s pair of Michele Botha and Sarah Roffe won the three-hour course.
Locals were invited to the 90-minute ‘Come-and-Try-It’ event. Celliers Kruger, running on his own, won the course with 18 check-points located.Aisling and Andrew Beckerling were the winning pair.
Major events around the world, including the World Rogaining Championships, are 24-hours events.
Mulder, one of the winning pair at this event, placed 3rd at the recent 24-hour World Rogaining Championship in Australia.
Lisa explains that they plan to extend the map to cover a bigger area.
“We’ve got enough space with diversity in the terrain to host a 24-hour event out here  within the next two years.” This event was made possible with thanks to Buffelskloof, Warrin Flores, Mike and Rene Erasmus (Morala) as well as Ian Bratt, Glen Terry and volunteers from the Rand Orienteering Club. For more information on the sport of orienteering, visit www.roc.org.za.