2025 Wily Weka - Cable Bay Adventure Park - through the eyes of three generations (6-hour event)

Wily Weka is Nelson Orienteering Club's primary fundraiser for the year. Planner and controller for this year's Wily Weka were Dave Quested and Darron Jones, held at Cable Bay Adventure Park in Hira, just north of Nelson. 

The three stories below provide insight into the similarities and differences between three generations of orienteers/adventure racers as they prepare for and tackle a 6-hour rogaine in very hilly terrain.

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'Direct lines’ was the theme of Finn (Drummond) and my Wily Weka this year. Knowing the terrain on offer in Cable Bay Adventure Park and that Dave and Darron were planning the course, we knew we would be treated to challenging and engaging route choices. Once we received the map, it became clear that there were numerous opportunities to connect the off-track controls with straighter lines through the bush, rather than sticking to the tracks. Based on that, we planned an adventurous route with plenty of shortcuts through the bush, aiming to cover most of the map, visit the trickier controls, and challenge our navigation in the bush.

Thanks to some excellent compass work by Finn and quite a bit of "swimming" through wet bush, we managed to pull off our plan with a few minor adjustments. There were definitely moments up the back of the course where it felt like we were in a much more remote location! We did not see many other teams, so it felt very much like we were on our own adventure. Navigating through the bush and trusting our instincts until the terrain features became clear made for a rewarding day out. It was a nice bonus to finish near the top of the results sheet, even though team “Stallion and cattle egret’ pipped us by one control!

Huge thanks to the entire organising team for putting on another fantastic Wily Weka.

Roland Eveleens

TEAM Finn Roland, 5:54:30 2500 (Open Men, 1st placed, 2nd overall)

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Waking up to a drizzly grey morning didn't suppress my enthusiasm for the day's adventure, the Nelson Orienteering Club's 6-hour Wily Weka Rogaine, being held at Cable Bay Adventure Park this year.
After receiving the map and plotting our route for the day, we went to the briefing where Darron made it very clear it was going to be slippery, wet, and even more slippery — oh, and lots of up and down! We set off feeling great and immediately missed our first control of the day, oh well, we'll get that one later.

We decided to go anti-clockwise around the map, trying to minimise too much up and down. We were pleasantly surprised when going for the controls in the bush that it was not too slippery and the bush was fairly easy to push through. As we got higher around the course, the temperature definitely dropped, and the cloud level lowered. We dropped down the MTB trail ‘The Poacher’, agreeing that it would definitely be one NOT to do on our bikes! Then we got a couple more controls before toiling right back up to the tops on Courthouse and Gamble Trails: these were a bit slippery, but with a bit of trail gymnastics, the top was finally conquered. 

All downhill from here, well, that was the theory anyway. The sun came out towards the end, which was lovely. A final run around the flat area, swooping up the controls on the flat, a couple of dips in the river to reach the controls on the other side, followed by a sprint to the Finish: that last part might be a bit of an exaggeration, more of a shuffle to the finish!

What an excellent day spent in the lovely native bush and amazing trails that make up Cable Bay Adventure Park. Dave and Darron designed a fantastic rogaine course with controls in interesting places and well spread. Thank you for a most excellent adventure!

Jane Lambert
TEAM Gavin and Jane 5:43:15 2160 points (Veterans, 1st placed, 9th overall)

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With the Wiley Weka back at Cable Bay, we were very excited to race. Both Hannah Roborgh and I (Louie Burger) are part of the Motueka High Adventure Racing Team, and we have been doing the Wily Weka the last few years in smaller groups as navigation training for our races towards the end of the year.

First impressions on the map were that it was quite short in distance, but with plenty of elevation and off-track travel.

In planning, we realised it was pretty ‘unclearable’. We chose to take on the course in a clockwise direction with our initial planned route only dropping a couple of CPs in the very middle but leaving heaps of room and option to drop controls later in the piece.

Our pace never felt super hard, and we focused more on hitting each control well than running lots. The course had a cool variety of CPs, and we found the bush to be a nice level of difficulty (relatively fast-moving but still some fun bush bashing).

To fuel, I took quite a few gels and lollies, etc. I have been enjoying eating quite sweet stuff in shorter races recently. Hannah had a range of high-energy snack bars and some gels. I found myself generally eating as much as possible or, at a very minimum, one ‘thing’ an hour.

Towards the end of the course, we kept a close eye on the time and realised that we might have to drop a few controls towards the end. Pretty happy with our on-the-fly rerouting, we had a route only missing a few small points with about an hour and fifty minutes to go.

We increased the intensity a bit, but it never felt like we didn’t have the time to pause and look at the map. Once we hit the flats, we had a bit of time to spare, so we were able to grab 100 points from some close-by controls at the start of the valley. Upon reflection, our worst mistake was missing a 40-pointer that was very close, as we thought time was very tight.

When we got in, we were very surprised (but stoked!) to see we were in first.

A massive thanks to the Nelson Orienteering Club and the Cable Bay Adventure Park. We are so lucky to have such an awesome event in our area!

Louie Burger

TEAM 'Stallion and cattle egret' 5:57:07 2540 points (Junior - mixed team, 1st placed, 1st overall 6-hour teams)