West Chatswood MapRun Courses
The West Chatswood map is one of Garingal’s old favourites: it’ been around for over 20 years. However, our new West Chatswood residents Istvan and Niki have taken a completely new approach with their MapRun courses. The courses start at a new park, and visit the seldom seen West Chatswood Athletics field.
​
The Start is at the park on the corner of Mindarie and Hatfield Streets one block south of Mowbray Rd (see map). The finish is slightly remote (200m away). The reason for the remote finish is that with MapRun if you run within 20m of the finish while doing a course, the finish will ping, and no more controls will register. With a score course, there are many route options, so the finish has to be somewhere where no-one will go!
-
Take care crossing all roads. Mowbray Rd, which runs E-W through the centre of the map, is busy at all times. 6 crossing points with either lights or a zebra crossing have been shown. The west part of Epping Rd, which is the southern border of the map, has no footpath and is therefore very dangerous. It has been marked as a forbidden route.
-
You MUST keep to tracks in this urban busland area to preserve the bush for everyone. There is a small stretch of track near the West Chatswood Athletic field that has footholds and handholds on the side of a sandstone cliff, and a 1m drop below into the Lane Cove River. It’s not difficult, but you may wish to plan your route to avoid it (see map).
The following courses are available. For the line courses, both the “red-line” distance and the “run distance” are provided below.
​
-
The Score course has the usual (Sydney Summer Series) scoring scheme: 10 points for controls 1 to 10, 20 points for controls 11 to 20, and 30 points for controls 21 to 30, plus a 10-point penalty for every minute (or part minute) late. The course also has the usual 45-minute time limit. When planning, be aware that you may have to spend 10-20 seconds at some controls waiting (or noodling) to get a beep.
-
The Short course is designed for families. It crosses Mowbray Rd once. There is a crossing nearby, but children should always be accompanied by a parent.
-
The Moderate course has route choice and more length for more exercise.
-
The Long course is for people who want a “work-out” and lots of route choice.
-
The Scatter course may be new to some orienteers. It uses the same map as the Score course, but instead of finding as many controls as you can in 45 minutes, you are required to find 20 controls (any controls and in any order) in the shortest time. (There is no advantage to finding controls that on the Score Course have a higher score).
Courses available. [Note: for the line courses, both the “red-line” distance and the “run distance” are provided below].
Score
45 minutes
Click for map with symbol descriptions
Click for map with text descriptions
​
Scatter
Any 20 controls
Click for map with symbol descriptions
​
Short line
2.8km / 3.6km
Click for map with text descriptions
​
Moderate line
4.3km / 6.5km
Click for map with symbol descriptions
Click for map with text descriptions
​
Long line
8.1km / 11.5km
Click for map with symbol descriptions
Click for map with text descriptions
​
​