7-Day Bushcraft Course

Reading Topographic maps (NZ topo50)

• Colours and symbols
• Scale and distance
• Orienting a map using features
• 6-figure grid references

Interpreting contour features

• Ridges
• Spurs
• Gullies
• Valleys
• Saddles
• Highpoints

Using a compass

• Finding North
• Orienting a map with compass
• Follow a compass bearing
• Field: map bearings
• Map: field bearings
• Taking resections/triangulations
• Downslope bearings
• Cross slope bearings
• Field: field bearings
• Refining compass technique

River Crossing

• Hazards
• River characteristics
• River crossing principles
• Decision making
• River crossing methods
• Recovery

Clothing & Equipment Selection

• Survival shelter/bivvy building
• Packs
• Boots
• Walking poles
• Personal clothing
• Emergency communications
• Using a GPS/Smartphone GPS

Camping Skills & Survival Skills

• Selecting a suitable campsite
• Pitching tents
• Building a natural survival shelter
• Fire lighting in adverse conditions

Advanced Walking Techniques in Steep Terrain

• Crossing steep scree
• Poles for bracing
• Foot placements and techniques for steep or slippery terrain
• Handlines
• Scree – traversing, ascending/descending

Survival Skills

• Building a natural survival shelter
• Field weather observations and predictions
• Fire lighting in adverse conditions

Weather Education

• Synoptic charts
• Finding reliable forecasts in NZ
• Reading  synoptic charts
• Using metadata charts
• Free air Freezing Level (FAFL)
• Global weather effects in NZ
• Understanding weather systems
  • High pressure
  • Low Pressure
• Orographic lifting
• Convection heating
• Frontal systems
  • Cold front
  • Warm fronts
  • Occluded fronts
  • Stationary fronts
• Field observations
  • Reading clouds
  • Wind direction

You don’t need any prior experience to enrol in this course. It is specifically designed to cover all the essential knowledge and skills you will need to succeed in New Zealand’s backcountry. This course includes a wide range of topics, ensuring that every participant can follow along and build a solid foundation of bushcraft skills & knowledge.

We believe that small groups are better for this type of training. So we have a maximum client-to-instructor ratio of just eight clients to one instructor.

We camp out on the first and last nights, but you can hire a tent & all the gear for any of our courses directly from us if you don’t have it. Just let us know before your course what you need, and our instructors will bring it along to the course for you. Other options are to bring along a bivvy bag or fly/tarp shelter to sleep in.

You will need good waterproof boots that have ankle support. Trail shoes are not appropriate for this advanced bushcraft course.

Click here to download our tramping boot guide.

No, we have boot dryers available from the end of day two throughout the extended bushcraft course. We know how tricky it can be to keep boots dry when we’re out training, so at the end of each day, we pop our boots on the boot dryers, so they’re ready to go for the next day.

OENZ  does not have boots available to hire or borrow. Boot hire is available from several outdoor stores in Auckland and Dunedin. If you are hiring or borrowing boots, please get waterproof leather boots.

The first two days are held mainly in open tussock terrain with patches of beech forest for walking in. A mixture of off-track and on-track navigation takes place here. Once we get into days 4-7, the terrain gets steeper, mixed with scree, tussock, compact ground and varying visibility.

16 years old or 14-15 years old if accompanied by an adult.