 Does anyone know of any navigation coureses that are run in south wales. I can only find courses run in north wales Thanks Ben
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 Look up your local orienteering club, the Welsh Orienteering Association has some. Orienteering provides a very good way of honing your navigation skills, and you don't have to worry about running etc., there's no problem if you want to show up and just walk. There are usually plenty of people who are happy to help, and events have graded technical difficulties so you can start easy and get hard. The really significant thing is it gives you lots of opportunities to practice and because the main point of it is navigation you'll get concentrated practice in a relatively compact space with lots of repeating opportunities. It will also probably be cheaper than doing a course, and probably have better results. The only real caveat is if you want to work with GPS then that's not part of the way the game is played, so for GPS you'd need to look elsewhere. Having said that, a lot of what navigation is about is route planning and selection, and that needs an understanding of the map and how it relates to the ground. GPS doesn't give you that, but it still needs to be in place to use a GPS effectively. Pete.
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Hi Ben, Is there nobody you know who can teach you rather than have to pay for a course as basic navigation can be learnt in an afternoon quite easily and as long as you have grasped the basics on direction of travel and map awareness from then on it's just a case of honing your personal skill level to what you want to achieve...
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 I did the Get Lost (beginners and advanced) courses a few years back and found them excellent value. They're based at Craig Y nos Country park and they do tend to fill up quite quickly. They're part classroom and part outdoors. Here's the link: Brecon Beacons Park Society Navigation Courses
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 I've also done the Get Lost course this year with the BBPS. It's not held at Craig Y Nos now but very nearby in Abercrave. They are really very cheap at £10 per day IIRC but of course this leads to the problem that they are fully booked for about a year ahead. I thought the Brecon Beacons Park Authority also ran navigation courses leading to the bronze, silver and gold national awards but I can't find any details on their website at the moment.
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 The BBNP doesn't actually run nav courses itself, but Over the Hill, a commercial company, runs the NNAS bronze, silver and gold awards based at National Park and Forestry centres at the Mountain Centre, Craig y Nos and Garw Nant (though not sure about the latter now as I understand the Forestry visitor centre there wasn't going to reopen after the work they'd been doing in the forest over last winter). I found that company because they have links through from the BBNP website and their bronze courses and 'safety on the hills' half day course are advertised in the guided walks booklet the Park produces. I did the bronze which shook the rust off my skills, and then did the silver training but didn't bother with the assessment. The bronze course was excellent, the silver less so and I was less impressed with the quality of the teaching I received for the silver. If I ever wanted to do the gold training I'd go somewhere else.
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 I did the Bronze, Silver & Gold at Losehill Hall in the Peak District, unfortuneatly they have stopped doing them. The courses do seem to vary a bit from location to location, talking to other people Losehill Hall was one of the few to incorporate a night navigation element.
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There are plenty of decent courses for map, compass and GPS skills. If you're interested in something a bit different then (forgive the shameless plug) check out my website: http://www.naturalnavigator.com Happy navigating!
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 Hi Ben, I can't help you with South Wales I'm afraid....but if you can get up to Snowdonia I have 2 courses running in the near future. One on 25/26th Sept and one on 13/14th Oct. Both are intermediate courses matched to NNAS Silver Level award (award is available if you want to take the optional assessment) and include a night navigation option too. Place available on either course at discounted rate of £90 if you are interested. More details on our website peakmountaineering.com Cheers, Paul
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If you can get up to N Wales, then you can't beat Plas y Brenin.
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Hi Mike, Plas Y Brenin courses are indeed excellent and many of the independent instructors and companies offering alternative courses will have trained/worked alongside PYB instructors and many may even do freelance work there too.
So although maybe you can't beat them there are many reputable companies offering courses of comparable quality! My response was aimed at trying to give Ben options in the near future. Regards,
Paul
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