A Fiordland College team are the winners of the National Get2Go championships held in the Tongariro National Park last week.

The 5-day competition was attended by 12 New Zealand schools, 8 from the North Island and 4 from the South Island. To qualify for the finals, the teams had to win the regional champs in their area. Fiordland College team defeated 23 other schools from Otago and Southland to become the winner of this year’s Regionals held in Dunedin in September.

Team Fiordland on Day 1, filling a barrel with water from a distance - without touching it. Photo: Supplied

Last week Jemima Hoskin, Libby Fox, Riley Carter, Keaton Smith, Jazz Braaksma, Ianthe Macmillan-Armstrong, Quinn Moffat and Jack Williams donned the team Fiordland’s bright red T-shirts to represent their school and their region against the very best adventure teams from around the country.

Coach, Fiordland College Deputy Principal, Shaun Cantwell is very proud of his team.

“We won the Regionals 8 times over the last 10-15 years, but this is the first time we won the Nationals,” he said.

Get2Go is an adventure outdoor education challenge for Year 9 and Year 10 school students. Organised by the Hillary Outdoors, the Get2Go challenges combine activities such as orienteering, kayaking, stand-up paddling, mountain biking, climbing and problem solving, into an action-packed week.

The first two days of this year’s Nationals included a set of challenges on high ropes and climbing wall, some problem-solving challenges and at the end of the day each team had to prepare a skit and a chant. Day 3 involved mountain biking and kayaking, followed on day 4 by a Rogaine (an orienteering event) and on day 5 by mountain biking and kayaking.

Asked about preparing for the event, Cantwell said that the team trained for 8 weeks, 3 times per week.

“The main challenge for me was to find time to train without affecting members’ other activities. All team members are involved in different extracurricular activities, such as sports and various clubs. I had to make sure that training did not detract from their other commitments,” the coach said.

As the trainer of the New Zealand Orienteering team and a long-time athletics and mountain running coach at the national level, Cantwell was well prepared for this challenge.

Five of the team were at the 2023 Get2Go Nationals, where they finished in the 9th place.

Team Fiordland competing in a high ropes challenge. Photo: Supplied

Year 10 student, Quinn Moffat puts his team’s winning performance this year down to team strength and tolerance. He found the Rogaine quite challenging, but said that it helped to have New Zealand’s best orienteer, Jemima Hoskin, on the team.

He enjoyed every aspect of the event, particularly problem solving and teamwork, and for him “winning was a surreal feeling”.

At 15, Jemima Hoskin, is already an international orienteering star, having represented New Zealand at orienteering championships in Australia last year. She believes that having done the Get2Go last year gave her and other team members an advantage.

“We had another year to train and knew what to expect. At the end of day 3 the New Plymouth team was winning, and we were second, but after the Rogaine we were way ahead of other teams,” she said.

“Our team was very strong on biking. We had some really good mountain bikers. One of the challenges was to ride across a very long plank and we did well in this.”

It’s of no surprise that Jemima enjoyed the orienteering.

Team Fiordland. Photo: Supplied

“I really liked the Rogaine, reading the map, leading the team, navigating between check points,” she said.

The Fiordland eight were very happy to have won the event. Tears of happiness were flowing when they were announced champions.

“We were so proud, that we wore our medals for 8 hours! It showed that a team from a small school like ours could win such a big event,” Jemima said.

The team is very grateful to the local community for sponsoring their trip, with generous contribution from the Rotary Club of Fiordland, Fiordland Community Board, The Grace Place, Syd Slee Charitable Trust, Kepler Challenge and Luxmore Grunt Mountain Run, Fiordland Endurance & Adventure Racing Society, and FreshChoice Te Anau.