Ystervark and Hooona Tand: I must precede the race report with the concluding paragraph as most people only bother to read the first paragraph and scan the rest.
Despite its small size and publicity this Ystervark and Hooona Tand took us through some spectacular places and provided a sustained challenge both on the river and in the mountains. It matched if not exceeded my experience on much bigger races. As I write this report my body has post race aches and pains associated with more prestigious endurance events yet it was only a 17 hour effort.
Clinton and Thursia Hardenberg and their supporters – and there must surely have been many – put on a well planned and executed event.
I have hope, and faith, that Clinton will take over the role that Darron Raw and the Swazi have played the past ten years feeding our needs. Aside from enthusiasm and a keen sense of adventure he also has those key attributes needed by a race director : a streak of cruelty and the ability to lie with a straight face about what lies ahead.
I just hope the big sponsors wake up in time before someone else takes the rights to this jewel of the future.
RACE REPORT:
Team : Bloed en OMO
Liesl “Chicken Licken” Hanekom
Piet “Kentucky Fried Hooona” Lombard
Jan “Mr Rooster” Bezuidenhout
Abel “Plaashooona ” van der Merwe
Once again Bloed en OMO sports two novices.
In the spirit of the new democratic SA, Plaashoona and Mr Rooster adopt the attitude that it is potential that counts not qualifications as regards Chicken Licken not being an experienced mountain biker. While we wait for the start, Kentucky takes her for a quick orientation spin around the parking area where she learns about gears and night riding.
Phase 1: Paddle, Hike, paddle
An hour before midnight we’re off, boats on backs down to the Wilge for a quick upstream paddle, some foot borne CPs then a paddle back to the camp.
Plaashooona and Mr Rooster survive the launch and with clashing paddles catch up to Kentucky and Chicken Licken who are patiently idling up ahead.
Then it sinks in – either we are in front or we’ve headed in wrong direction. Some quick calculations confirm the former. D@#$&, now we have noone to follow and Plaashooona must, for the first time, do some serious navigating. This is clearly punishment for remarks in earlier reports about “teams rushing about like headless chickens at the start”.
The paddling turns out to even tougher than expected. Drifts of mist reflect our headlamps back like camera flashes, making reed covered backs difficult to see. Each twist in the river is a surprise event resulting in frantic paddling and screams of turn, turn.
Then the river becomes constricted into a narrow, fast flowing channel, dotted with clumps of reed and submerged tree branches. The Mr Rooster and Plaashoona pair takes strain. Mr Rooster having zero river and almost zero flat water experience, while Plaashooona lacks K2 coordinating skills. Despite all the shouting and screaming we tip over, desperately clutching paddles and boat as the river spits us back downstream. Eventually we’re back in the calmer water and miraculously find a foothold amongst the reeds.
Chickens is not ducks. Water does not run off their backs. Or bellies. And they smell when wet.
Life has suddenly become serious as hypothermia is not friendly and the many layers of warm clothing have turned into a sudden mass that steams when eventually stripped off at the transition.
To our surprise we find TA1 and we set off for CP1 just as the kayaks of the hounds reach shore. A trail of lights follow us to CP2, CP3 and CP4. Back at the kayaks our PFDs have sheen of ice crystals.
Plaashooona swims three times and Mr Rooster four times on the way back – the fourth on the account of Plaashooona launching the boat before Mr Rooster is properly seated.
A pre-requisite of Bloed en OMO membership is to forgive easily.
We arrive at CP5 just ahead of Land Cruiser to be informed that we are the first team in. Then I remember the old wisdom : “If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something”.
Carrying the K2 laden with wet clothes the 1 km back to the start, the missing bit comes to me: we’re getting competitive and losing our sense of fun.
Phase 2: Bike, hike and bike
So we have a leisurely transition. Kentucky and Chicken Licken take a hot shower while Plaashooona huddles under a blanket at the fire waiting for feeling to return to various appendages. Mr Rooster amuses himself by looking for dry socks.
An hour later, the hounds have all gone, and we leave camp for an easy MTB to CP6 and TA3 – except that our stupid navigator in one of his ever more frequent episodes of confusion converts one centimetre of map to 1 km on the ground and we hurtle past a 5.1 km turn off.
I shudder to think where Bloed and OMO would have ended up had there been a turn off at 10,2 km. But, with some fortunate assistance we recover and find TA3 and continue on foot to CP7 which is easily found at the waterfall.
CP8, a “kloof” is more difficult to find since the heading indicated by the compass yields a steep climb so we veer to the left towards a stream which must surely be more in keeping with a kloof. But the stream flows uphill according to our interpretation of the map.
Back at CP8 Plaashoona pulls out his secret weapon – a philatelist’s magnifying glass complete with built in LED lamp. The team is awed. Except that it is water logged despite the Ziploc bag. A few shakes and it works but the map is too coarse to yield any clues about a kloof. Kentucky breaks ranks and heads uphill and finds the kloof.
The kloof is a deep rift in the mountainside with shear granite sides higher than our lamps can reach. Gut feel tells me it must be beautiful and a privilege to be climbing it. It’s a hard and relentless scramble of several hundred meters – in the vertical dimension.
We eventually break out into the open roof of the mountain, steam pouring out our collars. Where now? There is no obvious “spur” and we must surely have covered the sufficient distance to have reached CP8. Indeed, we are disappointed to not be face to face with CP8.
The problem with kloofing – especially kloofs that don’t show distinctly on a map – is that aside from obscuring all distant reference points, they force one in a direction which is not necessarily that of the next CP so that when you exit you do not have the foggiest idea were you are in relation to the two CPs or how much directional and distance adjustment is required.
Seconds later groups of lights, four here, eight there, even groups of twelve, come bobbing up out of off the black void of the valley like the torches of Amazonian tribesmen looking for heads to shrink or New England villagers intent on witch burning.
Minutes later, satisfied we also do not know where the h#@$ we are, they disappear in the direction of a slither of moon and murky red glow of the coming sunrise. They all head for a deep valley. On the other hand, our instinct is to keep to the ridge line in search of the so called spur. We scoff some snacks and follow them down, at discretely heading 30 deg to their left so they don’t feel we are following.
The night air is broken by the sound of breaking branches and black jacks being wrenched from their pods.
Then Chicken Licken barely spots a flickering red lamp straight ahead, half way up the next mountain side. It’s in the last place I would have expected a spur and definitely much further away from CP7 than expected. It must obviously be CP10.
When we get there its CP9. CP10 is easily found in the expected place. Daylight, as always, makes a massive difference to navigation.
Back at TA3 we re-mount the bikes for a tra-la-la ride to TA4 and our waiting kayaks at the caravan park.
Phase 4 : Long Paddle
The third paddle leg includes numerous rapids and suchlike. This proves too much for Mr Rooster and Plaashooona who swim at least four times before they work out a winning strategy.
B&O catch up to team Lava idling on the river bank. Later, at CP15, we cruise past a rather dispirited team Land Cruiser.
Confidence at a maximum we take on the final weir and make it through with a crunch and a shout. Once again it’s a 1 km portage back to camp. This, I thought, was a cruel touch but we are chirpy, our clothes almost dry and the sun is shining warmly on our backs.
At the final transition we discover that Bloed en OMO are once again the leading (official) team. Drastic action is required as this could do irreparable damage to our reputation and result in unrelenting pressure in future races.
So, we have some food and tidy up our campsite while Plaashooona thinks.
Phase 5: Hike
B&O stroll out on the final hiking leg, strategy in place, Plaashooona drops a few cutting remarks at the clearly broken Land Cruiser encampment about their manliness and general state of hygiene. Some aspersions are also cast about expecting a better performance from a team that includes an ex Bloed en OMO member.
Twenty minutes later they came trotting past pretending nonchalance. We neglect to tell them we plan to call it a day at CP17 and watch them suffer into the distance. At CP17, we decide to bag CP18 just for the fun of it.
At CP18 it takes discipline to turn around as we know CP19 and CP20 are just over the mountain and the horizontal distance back to the finish is hardly more than that of going back. Minutes later we wish Lava well on their journey.
PS : Jokes aside, our respects to Land Cruiser and Lava. The Bloed en OMO batteries were rapidly running flat at the end. Hats off also to the teams who tackled the last stage in the dark.
Lastly :
– why did the hooona cross the road?
– – to clip the CP!
Author: Abel van der Merwe | Team: Bloed & Omo | 9-10 July 2010 | Wilge River, near Verena, NW Prov.