Uprooting young adults to connect with nature set an orienteering course at Kellys Conservation Forest.
The 17-hectare Enner Glynn site which the Kelly family, along with community groups, have helped develop for nearly four decades has a new 7km (to 8km) orienteering course with 25 different stations.
Forest owner Lindy Kelly says, after welcoming many local schools over the years to study and practice conservation in the bush, she was always looking for more ways to engage the children with the natural world.
“People came up during the school holidays and tried it out and different families got different things out of it… the clues are all over the bush area,” she says.
“Participants have a clipboard and a map, and they find the clues and record the special numbers at each station, and there’s bonus points for being able to answer the questions there which makes it a little bit more exciting.
“The questions in many cases are open ended like ‘do you hear a bird song?’ and if so, ‘can you recognise what bird it is?’
“It encourages them to be a bit more aware of what is around them.”
Lindy says the course is free and participants are open to completing as little or as much of the course as they wish. She says her grandson, Oliver Shattock, was instrumental in setting out the trail which took several days to assemble at the end of last year, and he also helped her make a dozen clipboards for participants.
The forest had also recently received a bequest from the Annie Currie Legacy Fund which went towards a new trail and a new seat named in Annie’s honour, and a tree had also been planted in her memory.
Trustee Peter Taylor says Annie, (who was a benefactor of Kellys Conservation Forest), was aware of the need to conserve and maintain biodiversity and natural ecology, and she also highly valued community education and personal development.
“She appreciated projects to conserve New Zealand’s native bush and efforts that have gone into pest control and making conservation areas accessible to the public through building and maintaining walking tracks,” he says.
“In accordance with Annie’s values and wishes to support groups and projects that are conserving and caring for natural ecosystems, we were very pleased to be able to offer Kellys Conservation Forest a grant.”
Lindy says the new trail, seat and the orienteering course is available for use by contacting 021 026 51196 to arrange a time.
