Thunderball Manor Park

Mapping Notes, 2007

OHV's Friday afternoon runs from Belmont School often went up the western side of the river. And on one the runners discovered the back door (so to speak) of a paintball site. Quite a well-kept one, in fact cables are being laid around the site for lights! There are open areas with piles of tires, and other areas with groups of 44gal drums. The most challenging part is bush with labyrinth of tracks, junctions only metres apart.

The following are random observations about the mapping treatment. You shouldn't have to figure out the mapper's interpretations on the way to the first control:-))

• Mappers
  Michael Wood did the fieldwork in Jan 2007. There have been ongoing site changes and they probably haven't all been picked up. Michael Wood did the cartography, according to the IOF Sprint Specifications.
• Basemap
  OHV's 1:20,000 super-topo mapping, which is based on LINZ orthophotos. You may be sure that they have been rotated 23.5 degrees to magnetic north, unlike some maps we could name... To this a more detailed aerial photo ex Hutt City Council has been fitted, and used as the base for fieldwork.
• Contours
  They were estimated in the field, est 5m interval. There is very little relief.
• Tracks
  There's an area of bush with a maze of tracks. Some are bigger and the black/brown/black symbol has been used. Most are very narrow, and the dashed black line has been used. A very few are shown as indistinct. The larger ones showed on the aerial photo, the smaller ones have been fieldworked in and geometry may be less accurate. Occasionally there is an obstacle (eg a fallen tree or low branch) that will interrupt progress. These have been shown with the MTBO obstacle symbol, which is a purple bar across the track. You are allowed to pass these bars, they are shown only because they slow you down.
• Vegetation
  99% open land or jungle. One or two bits of light green, they will be useful more for navigation than passage. The jungle contains gorse and blackberry, and some of the tracks are a bit scratchy. Leg covering strongly advised, arm covering a good idea.
• Cliffs
  The area used to be a gravel processing area, and the old foundations for machinery are there in places. For instance vertical concrete retaining walls, shown with the cliff symbol. If there is a track at the base it is not possible to show the tags.
• Manmade objects
  There are open areas with piles of tires, and other areas with groups of 44gal drums, and some large wooden cable reels. We toyed with the idea of telling you there were wooden, rubber and steel boulders. But the piles and groups have various plan shapes visible on the photo, so we have mapped their shapes using the distinct cultivation boundary symbol (a very thin black line). We call the groups man-made objects in the control descriptions.
  Fences shown are fairly rudimentary - steel stakes with one strand of blue parcel tape, missing in parts. Hard to keep up with the changes, don't rely on them.
  There are some tall posts I guess with some paintball function, and some others with lights on. Mapped with the "T" for small tower.
• Knolls and Depressions
  Hardly any. (Though some mappers would no doubt find some:-))
• Uncrossable Features
  You are advised (since no-one else seems inclined to tell orienteers) that the sprint specifications PROHIBIT crossing of certain features, on pain of disqualification. These include cliffs (thick black line with or without tags). You're not allowed to enter water with a black bank line either, but you won't have to take on the Hutt River:-))