'Nothing like it': 24hrs of running, solving riddles around Canterbury high country

For 24 hours over the weekend, 500 people sprinted, ambled and wandered around the grassy plains of Canterbury's high country, searching for small markers and solving silly riddles in a rogaine-style event.

TWALK - the 24-hour walk - has been running since 1967. It is organised solely by volunteers from the Canterbury University Tramping Club. The club selects a secret location, negotiating with local farmers for access, to host the event.

The first event, organised by Greg Martin, was held at Mt Thomas. He had brought the idea to New Zealand from Australia after participating in a similar event while studying at Melbourne University. He did not alert landowners that there would be hundreds of strangers traipsing over their land, which led to a few confrontations that year with local farmers.

TWALK 2024 organiser Alex Monckton said now landowners were always involved and were often provided with a small donation or community work as thanks.

This year, the event was held in Mesopotamia, near the Rangitata River. The winning team called themselves Pack of Rafters.

Over its history, TWALK locations have been scattered across Canterbury, including around Lake Heron, the Hakatere Conservation Park, Lake Coleridge, the Banks Peninsula and Mt Lyford.

"Every year we aim to find somewhere new and this comes with many additional challenges managing the event in remote, unused-before locations," Monckton said.

CUTC president Nick Slegers said the event had been growing yearly, with this year and last, being the biggest TWALK events ever.

"We get a diverse range of participants, more so than your typical club rogaine event. It's open to the public and is a way to give thanks to our outdoors community that helps us do so much."

Monckton said the organisers were "free to go crazy and make the event whatever they want it to be".

"It's special because it's so different to other rogaining competitions in that it's more about the amusement and fun rather than the technical and physical competition, which is, of course, still a large part of it," he said.

"But when we throw in costumes, paper plates with silly unhelpful clues, a mystery location that no one knows until they arrive, random competitions like a colouring competition onto the map, there really is nothing else like it."

At some point in the late 1980s, costumes were introduced to the competition, which participants must wear for at least the first leg.

Slegers said it was an unofficial rule that those with orienteering backgrounds must make their costume particularly hulky, as a handicap to their team. World champion orienteers often compete.

"The better you are at orienteering, the more gung-ho you are, the more incapacitating your costume should be."

The best-dressed winner this year had built a cardboard car to wear.

Another team had a model house with balloons suspended above their head like the home from the movie Up.

There was also the Matagouri Huggers team that covered themselves in fake cuts and scratches, replicating the injuries trampers get when walking through the prickly plants.

By the end of the event, participants will have hiked 100 kilometres, completing five legs, each around 10km to 20km long.

Along the way, the teams must solve cryptic clues, such as "Good thing you aren't a cat," - relating to an orienteering control you had to cross a river to find, and "something amiss in the abyss," - for a control shoved down a crack in a rock.

The other 2024 TWALK organiser Daniel Smith said the event is usually won by a group of "godzoners."

"...guys who are incredibly fit and experienced with navigation, however, the tricky part is finding the control or "plates" which sometimes is completely random, so if you can think like the setters then you can definitely save a bunch of time."

The Hash House provides a place of rest and rehabilitation in the form of tasty hot food cooked up by volunteers. One year volunteers cooked over an open fire, true camp style.

Slegers said he was more proud of helping run TWALK than of his university studies.

"We're all just students volunteering our time in between studies, work and our lives generally, which is such a big challenge," he said.

"I think it's pretty special and pretty impressive that with such a high turnover of the club, we pull off such a monumental thing with just a bunch of passionate people who want to make it happen."