Uncharted’s Expedition Africa was a journey. The journey to halfway had us in a lot of pain and wondering how another 250km was possible. The journey home showed us what we were capable of, how much the team aspect counts, and how to hang in there. On the 2nd 250km we stopped asking who invented this ridiculous sport. I think we realised something crazy – we were enjoying the experience.
Monday morning’s sunrise start saw us moving steadily around Hermanus on an orienteering leg. We had to climb a few hundred metres above town to ‘The Eye’ and dropped back down to the lagoon for a total of 14km. We purposefully started slowly, but we lost a huge 50 minutes in 3 hours to the leaders. Our strategy was to race our own race, so it wasn’t important. But it gives an idea of how fast the front guys were going.
We had a 20km paddle to Standford ahead. Half of it was on a very windy lagoon. We had large waves breaking onto Lizelle and I at the front of the boats. We made good progress along the left side – passing Team Energy. They passed us again when we got stuck in some shallows. We chased them up the river to Standford.
We transitioned to the 37km hike faster than Energy and the 15km of dirt roads were ticking by. We hit the beach for a long 20km beach trek. We moved well here, but Energy came running past eventually. It started to get dark just as we reached Gansbaai, which slowed finding the foot bridge. We cruised into transition feeling pretty good for almost 12 hours of racing – mostly on foot.
The next two legs were the biggest of the race: a 140km bike and 47km hike. The Western Cape’s roads were in good condition so for the most part it was fast riding. We had some slower stuff in the sand at the light house where I made the first nav mistake of the race. We saw the tracks go onto the beach but decided to back track and follow a track inland. It disappeared and we were left fighting the fynbos. We made our way back to beach and stayed ahead of Energy for the rest of the leg. We saw Jabberwock, Pennypinchers and Bikesnwines leaving the transition as we rolled in.
The 47 hike was big. Big uphills, hard vegetation and a big route choice. It took us almost 3 hours to get to the top of the hill for the
first CP on the beacon. Next came the big route choice. I chose to go over the top: there was a bit more climb but it seemed to be shorter.
The mountain was very slow going and I underestimated the big gorge. It was very steep and without the fence to hold onto we would have had to go a long way around. There was only one set of foot prints ahead of us on this choice. I realised I’d messed it up. I learnt something important here – we thought we’d messed up the whole race; we thought we would have been overtaken by 5 teams; I thought I’d wasted the teams months of preparation. It seemed our race was run and now we would just be in for a finish.
Over the next few hours I realised that it was probably a 2 hour mistake and in 86 hours, thats a small amount. We were being silly but none of us had the experience or sense to realise it. It turned out we’d actually caught a team on this leg. Both Cyanosis and
Accelerate chose the route over the top. Merrell reclaimed the lead by going around the bottom.
It got dark not long after we picked up the checkpoint after the fence-assisted gorge clamber. We were now 36 hours into the race and 8 hours into the hike leg. We continued steadily. It took a while to find one of the roads – probably a 30min hunt and my 2nd nav error. The answer was to rely less on the tree line and more on the farmhouse to find the road we wanted. Perhaps it was a tired mind.
We had a long hike to the top of Salmonsdam Nature Reserve. It was a slow and painful decent down to the transition. We got in at about 3 am – about 17 hours after setting out on the hike. We were stuffed! We had caught up with Pennypinchers.
The midway transition was a great venue. George and Joan looked after us with pasta and pudding. Wiehan and Lizelle had some steel drops injected into their blisters by the medic and it looked like a painful procedure. I got about 3 hours of sleep before preparing the maps for the second half. We were all feeling much better and ready for the 2nd half.
The second half of the race seemed faster and easier. This was important because we were already very tired and sore. We got the 107km bike leg underway in warm morning weather. We moved well and got close to Pennypinchers. One of the highlights of the race for me was our Pie and Coke stop at about 80km. We were all in good spirits and the feeling of stopping in a small town along our advenure was great. We rolled into transition with about 2 hours of light remaining. We hustled to get out just behind Pennypinchers and make the most of the light.
We climbed to the first dam wall and it got dark soon after that. Finding the next high dam would be a challenge. I started badly by
turning in a bit too soon and Pennypinchers got ahead. We followed the road up and up. We started to reach the correct altitude and the paths didn’t look anything like the map. I was getting ready to back all the way out to relocate, but Wiehan spotted some tracks and we took the chance to follow them. I was very relieved to find the high dam. Next up was a tough nav section to find the gorge. We had to go across an almost featureless hillside and find the abseil.
It was dark and misty. What followed was a highlight of the race and great team work. We took the world’s best bearing – ever! I would stand at a point and Wiehan would head off into the distance until he was on the edge of visual or hearing range. I would move him left or right until we got the direction spot on. Danie and I would walk to meet him. Danie kept track of the distance. And we repeated that process for about 2km. We spiked the kloof and little koppie – in the dark and misty conditions. Nice work team!
We didn’t follow up with our great bearing very well. We were slow to get down to the kloof, umming and ahhing about the best lines. Tired minds I suspect. We did the abseil and kloofing section. It was enjoyed by others but I seemed to just want to get through it. We made it onto the roads into Villiersdorp. Lizelle and I sleep-walked into town as Danie and Wiehan sheparded us along the road.
We got to the paddle and were warned it was cold out there. We put lots of layers on, decided to sleep 30 min to 5.30am and get onto the water. Pennypinchers were planning to sleep until light, so we figured we would get out there and try to get the break. We needed to paddle on bearings in the dark, not being able to see the land. When the mist rolled into it turned out we couldn’t see the stars either. Getting those Fluids to go straight is difficult, so following a bearing with no outside reference is near impossible. We managed to do it for 2.5km and found the bank I wanted, but we decide to stop and sleep. We did some proper gear testing – space blankets are really effective! We were woken up by Bikesnwines coming the other way in the mist. It was light but still misty. We got going and found the CP near to the bridge. Pennypinchers appeared and overtook us on the way to the next CP. They opened a few minutes towards the end of the paddle.
The last big cycle was a great route for the end of the race. The majority followed the Botriver and dropped a lot of altitude. There was
a mean kick in the last 15km. I made the mistake of saying it was the last hill – there were another 3 even if they were smaller.
We got onto the orienteering leg with a few minutes of daylight remaining. We saw Pennypinchers RUNNING towards the end of the leg. They had dropped the hammer on that bike leg and opened over an hour gap on us. We had an incident-free walk around the orienteering leg.
We cruised the last 8km into town to finish Expedition Africa in 8th place. Pennypinchers beat us convincingly over the last day. We took 86 hours and 38 minutes. We finished in 8th place. We were an incredible 26 hours behind Merrell.
We had a great experience. It was incredibly tough and based on our shape at halfway, I’m not sure how we made it to the end. Danie was a consistent and strong workhorse. Wiehan motivated, entertained and worked. Lizelle showed incredible determination and strength. I enjoyed doing it with you guys. I got plenty of experience as navigator and hope to be able to drive my team with the top guys one day.
We had a great week and lots of people contributed. Heidi and Stephan put in days of effort and we could feel your passion in all aspects of the race. All your meticulous effort and attention to detail does not go unnoticed. Thank you for some fantastic organisation and unforgettable experiences.
Mickey van der Merwe sponsored us with some First Ascent shirts for the race – thank you! Skarpa and Maralene opened their home to us in Bloemfontein on our travels. Baleens Guest House in Hermanus looked after us before and after the race – thank you Paula, Mike and Nato. Senseless and Titanium designs must be thanked for our fast looking Uncharted cycling shirts – we won them at the Senseless Summer AR.
Author: Alex Pope | Team Uncharted (Alex Pope, Danie Van Aswegen, Wiehan and Lizelle van der Merwe) | Expedition Africa, 9-13 May 2011
Images by Chris Hitchcock and Erik Vermeulen