As part of the Deer Stalkers Hunts Course I recently spent the day in the Karamatura Park finding my way around.
As I have talked about before – understanding how to read a map and use a compass are vital skills to know before you head out into the bush. Without these, you have a very real chance of getting disorientated and ultimately lost.
We practised walking to a compass bearing, resectioning, meaning calculating where you are based on identifiable landmarks, and also headed off track to see how well we could fare heading through heavy bush with only a Compass Bearing to guide us.
Had a couple of interesting interesting developments worth mentioning –
Check your map – specifically, what Grid System it is using. I had my ETrex 30 with me, and quickly realised that my grid reference was different to the map grid. Double checking, we spotted the map was on the old grid, and therefore required me to change the GPS Setting to match it. It was about a 20 second fix – but threw us for a bit. Coincidently – I got asked exactly the same question by someone that night via Email. Same fix.
An overview of River Safety finished the day out – again something that I think a lot of people heading out into the bush overlook – NZ has some fairly gnarly rivers that can rise without a whole lot of provocation – so being able to judge and cross them is very important.
Another great day with the HUNTS guys.
