Orienteering

Are you looking for a little adventure? Get outdoors and put your brain and your body to work. Get some exercise and work on your orientational skills. Bring along your whole family or a group of friends.

Getting started

First, choose a course. You can pick up a map at the visitor information center at either the library or the main rail station. They’re also available at the front desk of the zoo or the castle. Or you can download them online. Our orienteering courses have three levels of difficulty. The orienteering site by the zoo has an easy and a difficult course. The castle area orienteering site offers seven courses at all three levels of difficulty.

There are two starting points. Castle courses start at the visitor information center at the municipal library. Bear courses (in the zoo area) start at the zoo gate. You’ll use a typical orienteering map with a lot of detail. They differ slightly from ordinary hiking maps; forest areas where it is easy to run are shown in white. The control points on the course are all marked on the map. The object is to visit them all in order, walking or running.

At each control point, you’ll record its verification number in the correlating box printed on your map. Each control has a metal plate with three numbers; the first is the control number, second is the course number, and third is the verification number. Check the first two numbers against your map and record the third in the corresponding box.

Controls are numbered and are connected on the map by straight lines. In reality, the actual route you’ll take between two points is unlikely to be a straight line. Your goal is simply to find the quickest way to get from point to point and fill in the boxes on your map.

Using the course

Familiarize yourself with how the course works and complete it yourself. This activity is fun for children as young as six years old, as long as they can read and understand the control description.

How the controls are marked

Each control is marked with an engraved metal plate (6 x 4 cm) affixed to objects in the terrain.

Controls on the Bear Site courses are attached to wooden stakes.

Controls on the Castle Site courses may be attached to wooden stakes, chains, plastic clips, or affixed directly on a cliff, rock, or other object.

Here are some examples:

Levels of difficulty and safety

Keep in mind that you undertake this activity with children at your own risk. The courses are located in largely safe and accessible terrain away from traffic. We recommend practicing with the Castle Site courses, which are in open parkland, before heading to the Bear Site around the zoo, which is set in the forest and is a bit more demanding.

Orienteering courses

Bear Site — start at the zoo

Bear course A — length approx. 1,100 m, easy

Bear course B — length approx. 1,700 m, difficult

Castle Site — start at the library

Castle course 1 — length 450 m, easy

Castle course 2 — length 700 m, easy

Castle course 3 — length 1,400 m, medium

Castle course 4 — length 1,350 m, medium, closed in winter

Castle course 5 — length 1,000 m, medium, closed in winter

Castle course 6 — length 1,250 m, difficult, closed in winter

Castle course 7 — length 1,200 m, difficult, closed in winter

Difficulty levels

Easy

Total distance of a few hundred meters with a small number (about 5) of easily located controls in safe, accessible terrain.

Medium

More controls over a longer distance (500 to 800 meters). The greater length and the larger number of controls makes getting your bearings a bit tougher.

Difficult

Here, the course covers 1,000 meters or more, with a large number of controls (around 10). Some controls are difficult to access, in steep terrain, in spots that require some climbing. Good for active kids.