What do all these squiggles mean on my control description 'clue sheet - where are the words'?

At Come And Try It events or the Sydney Summer Series events, the description of the precise location of the control marker will be in simple English words with perhaps some size detail in metres.

However, orienteering is a truly international sport so where there are people of many nationalities (languages and alphabets) competing, a standardised graphical means of desctribing the control sites is necessary.  This has been done by the International Orieteering Federation (IOF).  So for major Australian events, the control descriptions are given in this symbolic language.  If you find you're given a control sheet that has these symbols in little rows of boxes, ask an official to clarify any you don't understand before you start off.

The full range of these IOF symbols and how they should be read are explained in a pdf file downloaded here .

As you read through the symbols, you should see the logic behind most of what's there.

Of course, once you'e fluent in IOF, you can go orienteering in China or Russia or Syria or anywhere, confident you will be able to understand the clue sheets because they'll be in IOF symbols.