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Hello everyone, just in the process of planning a trip to NZ from UK and was wondering about navigation. I'm an old school type and much prefer paper topo maps and compass. Can you still buy paper maps from shops in New Zealand, here in UK you can buy 1:50,000 local maps in newsagents. Would local rural stores sell them or would a town or city be best to get them.
Many thanks,
Nick.
Mapworld in Christchurch
https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-se...-map-retailers
I'd buy them online before you travel just in case the selling agents don't have the ones you want in stock when you arrive, maybe even download & print them at home.
You can still find them at news agents and post shop (if you can find one). Outdoor stores often have them too.
I have noticed it can be hard to find the exact one you need in areas that are heavily visited.
Bivouac.co.nz has a lot of them to purchase online. Good luck
good on ya still a place for them - yes DOC visitor center's will have them and hunting and fishing stores also stock them - I wish more would use them and carry them -when the batterys go down on a GPS what then - the old garmins used to have a screen which said DO NOT USE AS YOUR PRIMARY MEANS OF NAVIGATION very very true - sadly they will not have DOC boundarys which is usefull if you are hunting near private land - but when in NZ go into a web site called WAMS maps ( Walking Access Mapping System ) you will get DOC boundarys on a NZ Topo map base and you can draw on your boundarys before going hunting - by playing with the type of map you can also get good aerial photos - very handy to pick up clearings for hunting - a tip using WAMS switch of all layers you dont need and system will work faster good luckQuote:
Originally Posted by Nick-UK
Always a good idea too have the old school maps in the field on multi day trips
Plans can change and especially good it you want to explain something to someone else
One small problem is when you are hunting around the join in two maps or even worse near a corner and you might need three maps too safely cover an intended hunting area
In which case I would print and laminate as required
Have you had a look at this website ? I contacted them a while back and they said that they could print maps of nz.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick-UK
https://www.splash-maps.com/
as others have said plenty of places sell them... the NZTOPO50 app on your phone will give you both topo map and satilight photo ,will show you DOC block boundaries AND your current location... great fun to get out paper map,do the dead reckoning thing,yip Im here. if really keep then work out your 6 figure grid reference, and then and only then ask phone/gps .surprising how close you can get.
topo50 costs less than $10 to install and is really good easy to use programme,if an old techtard like me can use it,you will be fine.
+1 for printing from topomap.co.nz. Takes a bit to get the hang of, but being able to select the specific area you’re going to avoids the problem @akaroa1 mentioned and carrying a few laminated A4s is way more practical than a massive folded map.
years back I took my big paper map into printers in Timaru,got them to print of an A4 sized area of it and laminated it..then took the DOC paper map and cut out the block,sat it on top of my new laminated smaller map and traced outline/block boundaries..... and now my phone does it for me,oh how we have progressed.
Paper Topo maps are readily available online through several outlets such as "Gearshop".
Also available over the counter in almost all sporting stores and visitor centres.
That said the NZTOPO app is great if you have a device to download them too and take with you.
Thanks for all of your replies guys, I'll probably have both paper and digital maps on phone, if I can work out how to download. I do like studying a paper map in my tent of an evening, seeing the bigger picture without having to zoom in and out, a bit of bedtime reading. I think once I've decided exactly where to go I'll make a list of the maps required and buy them on arrival, it would add up to a fair bit of weight otherwise.
I normally just download the specific map from the link below, then just print the specific section I want to scale and laminate it:
https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-se...50-map-chooser
Many thanks for that Andygr, I hadn't heard of them and they are here in the UK. A bit like silk escape maps used by the military.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andygr
The UP side with old folded maps is that lots of mine have notes on the edges and spots marked on them from previous hunts and when you sit and have a study you start too remember why they are there
I often write private land owner numbers on the edge if I need to ring and ask to take a short cut ( does happen in the South Island ).
Helicopter operator numbers
Local DoC Office or officer details
Sometimes even the dates I was in that location
I've forgotten most of what I have learned about these areas
Especially real world track times when going in heavy and going out even heavier
my google earth map on laptop has pins all over it...most of the kills in my hunting block over 30 years,makes interesting viewing and gives an idea where animals hang out and dont.Quote:
Originally Posted by akaroa1
I cant stand digital maps! Paper for me all the time. So much easier to see the whole picture rather than rubbing your grubby, bloody fingers over some tiny arsed bloody screen to try and figure things out. And then when you think you have it all sorted you enlarge and all the other stuff disappears. And then if you want to show your mate, you cant get 2 heads close enough together to see the screen, the maps tiny, and you scroll too fast and your poor mate cant keep up. Paper every time.
Greetings,Quote:
Originally Posted by Husky1600#2
With you up to a point on this. Grew up with paper maps and compass and still prefer them for the big picture. The paper map GPS is shite though. Had some interesting walks in my younger life with this, no multi day ones though.
GPM.
Paper maps are only part of the picture. You need to be good at map to compass work, and doing paces and bearings. THEN you are well on the way to not getting lost when in new country. But that takes practise, and the skills are perishable. You need to use them a few times a year.
Google maps now appears to lose where you are when data drops off for a period of time. Hardly user friendly in country like rural NZ.
Give me a paper map any day. Waay back when they were a dollar each (1984) I purchased all the 1:50 thous of NZ, plus the one in 250 thou. The roads and buildings may have changed, but the bush/rivers/ridges have not.
as hinted, availability of paper maps is a bit patchy specially if you’re more than 100km from the place you want to visit. Often only one or two shops in a city carry them so you’ll waste some time finding them.
Your fallback is the NZTopo50 app which you get one for south and one for north island and carry a couple of powerbanks which is comparable in weight to 3 or 4 paper. This is much easier to use than the UK Ordnance survey app.
You wont want to be dowloading croppoing and printing your own maps while on holiday unless youre a real virtual geek.
Rememember in NZ magnetic north is ~22deg different from grid north and you should ideally buy an NZ compass.
Just thought I should weigh in here too. Have made and paid for plenty of mistakes myself, specially the edge of the map one…
New Zealand compass? Never seen one with magnetic north marked. The Recta compasses allow you to dial in magnetic north. Magnetic north varies both due to place and over time and occasionally reverses itself so that north becomes south. There is some discussion over how fast this happens. I wonder if it effects GPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagheera
GPM.
YOU CAN get compass wit hthe offset already put in it..easier to go off side of map....if someone is clever enough they will link back to thread where I put up photos of 6-8 pages from MSC manual that says it all really.
Actually Northern and Southern hemisphere compasses are balanced different so a Northern one may end up with the needle touching the housing and therefore not working properly when used down here.
You mentioned silk maps. If you go the download route, most print shops will have an option for printing on cotton paper (the stuff bank notes used to be made of) which will be pretty similar.
Good point. Our dip angle (angle that the magnetic lines meet the surface) must be quite steep as well We are quite close to the south magnetic pole which is southwest of NZ in the southern ocean and moving north which is increasing the magnetic variation year by year. Magnetic variation in NZ varies from about 18 degrees in the North to 26 degrees in the South. Add to this we are now on our on our third different mapping grid that I can remember so most of us will have maps in our drawer with all three, none of which run due North. It's amazing that we can find our way to our letterbox and back assuming we still have one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Jack
GPM.
Many thanks for all of your responses, I'll buy a compass upon arrival and I've found a shop in the UK that stocks NZTopo50 maps so once I've finalised where I want to explore I'll buy some. I'm actually thinking of doing some navigation training specific to New Zealand at start of trip, as a refresher, although I guess it's the same as the Northern Hemisphere, just upside down?
Getting used to the fact that moss grows on the south side of our trees will be your biggest hurdle!:huh:
My navigation skills are based around what I learned in the hills of Scotland and Wales. Open country is not really a problem, however when I first ventured into the NZ bush I found it remarkably disorientating. You can walk 10 meters, look back to where you came from and not recognise a thing if you don't pay attention. Also quite strangely my natural sense of direction was completely turned around which added to the confusion. My point is that when you get here spend a bit more time orientating yourself than you would at home. I make a habit of setting the gps to give me the same co-ordinates as my map. I found this guide to be useful. A lot of it will be old news to you but it may be worth going over again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick-UK
https://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/defau...ap-guide_0.pdf
Andygr...I get that when visiting mate in Ikimatua near reefton/greymouth.... my sence of direction works perfectly but my internal compass has reversed polarity..no matter how much Ive looked at compass needle of watched sun come up n set...it just feels backwards
I just print mine off the interweb. Can zoom in a bit too. Makes the hills seem less steep. :thumbsup:
Yup, I often walked into Farmers in Taupo and came out the wrong door thinking I was heading back to the car.
Greetings All,
A little trick I learned many moons ago is finding North with your watch. Point 12.00 on the dial at the sun and North is half way between the hour hand and 12. You need to allow for daylight saving of 1.5 hrs during daylight saving and 0.5 hrs for the rest of the year. NZ has had half an hour of permanent daylight saving since the 1940's or thereabouts. Good for a quick check.
Grandpamac.