The third Monday trip organised by the Norwegians was about orienteering and navigation skills. We met at the same place next to uni as the week before. We divided the teams by lining up in order of how good we think we are at reading maps. Then we paired up so the strongest two international students went with the weakest two Norwegians and vice versa. Each team had two controls they had to find and take a picture to prove they had been there. The more creative the picture was, the more points you get, and the winning team would get a price. We also had to plan our route before setting off and draw it on the map.

I ranked myself quite high at reading maps, so I was together with less experienced Norwegians. The reason we were divided into groups like this was that more experienced people can teach map reading. I found this exercise good as it allowed me to think about the map reading more and make me think critically if I am at the right spot when questioned by my teammates. The difference compared to orienteering by myself was that instead of just being like ‘I am here’, I had to give reasons why we were at that point and I usually don’t have to think that. It was nice to teach the others and try to make them to see the contour lines and other features in the nature. One thing I found difficult was to motivate my team to go to the exact point of the control. The rest of them were not as passionate about completing the task as I was and didn’t seem to mind if we took the picture in a wrong spot. To me that was unimaginable, and I think that my teammates thought I am being too strict with the rules.

After the orienteering practise we had an exercise of following a compass bearing. We joined with another group and the exercise was to hide a small object on the ground and then give the bearing and the number of paces to the other group and they had to find the object. This exercise was hard since most of the people didn’t know how to pace and didn’t know how many paces they had for 100 metres. So if this activity was to be organised again I would suggest to let people count their pacing beforehand.

The last activity of the day was a quiz about map features. We were in groups and to be able to answer a question you had to run to a water bottle and if you were the first you could answer. The quiz was good as we were memorising the map features. The problem with it was that we didn’t have quite enough space for everyone, so it tend to be only the same people running to answer. Therefore, the game was not really inclusive, and we could have relocated to a better spot. The points gained from the quiz were added to the points got from the pictures and the group that had the most points won two bags of sweets.

All in all, the activities were good, and it was great to have this Monday trip right after our orienteering practice in class so everyone still remembered how to do it. Having the price was also a good motivator to get the teams working better together.