News > Metlink City Safari - Sunday 16 May 2010

Posted on 01/04/2010 12:00am

The rain held off just long enough for the finish of yesterday’s seventh – and biggest – Metlink City Safari. About 600 people of all ages and attire boarded the harbour ferry, piled into buses, rode the Cable Car and clambered on the Johnsonville train, and scurried around Wellington streets in a mad dash to get to a range of checkpoints dotted across the city.

The Safari is an orienteering or, strictly speaking, rogaining event in which you’re allowed to use public transport, as well as your feet, to get to as many as possible of the 103 checkpoints in locations anywhere in the city between Seatoun and Johnsonville. Checkpoint locations ranged from Mt Kau Kau to the Ataturk Memorial above Tarakena Bay.

Numbers taking part in yesterday’s event superceded last year’s record. More than 103 teams took part in the six hour event and more than 60, most of whom were family groups, took part in the three hour course.

Yvette Baker, Britain’s first orienteering gold medallist and Bill Edwards, three-times Irish orienteering representative, won the six-hour event. Florence and Martyn Reynolds won the three-hour event. Students from Samuel Marsden Collegiate School and Rongotai College won the school six- hour and three-hour competitions respectively.

For more details, check http://www.mapsport.co.nz/saf/

Official photos are available from http://www.onlinefotos.com/site/images.asp?Studio=100000148&Gallery=100003243