Expedition Africa: 550 kilometres of long-lasting memories

June 2, 2014 AdventureLisa Expedition Africa, Featured 1

Eventual winners, Team Seagate (New Zealand), crossing a river on Day 1 of Expedition Africa. Navigator Chris Forne leads the way. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

It took only 81 hours for the New Zealand adventure racing team Seagate to complete the 550-kilometre course at Expedition Africa by foot, mountain bike and kayak. They crossed the finish line at the Port Edward Holiday Resort two-and-a-half hours ahead of the defending champions, Haglöfs Silva (Sweden).

Eventual winners, Team Seagate (New Zealand), crossing a river on Day 1 of Expedition Africa. Navigator Chris Forne leads the way. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

Race winners, Seagate, were one of 16 international teams to visit South Africa for this fourth edition of Expedition Africa. While this was their first Expedition Africa experience, teams Haglöfs Silva (Sweden), Tecnu Adventure Racing (USA), R’ADYS Switzerland (Switzerland) and Beast of Ballyhoura / V Graph (Ireland) – as well as a host of South African teams – were back again. And the conditions and locations couldn’t have been more different! Last year teams experienced cold and snow in the Drakensberg mountains; this year it was all about warmth, humidity and coastal terrain.

Team Haglöfs Silva (Sweden) plan their next stage. Haglöfs Silva won Expedition Africa last year and were back to defend their title. Pre-race the captain Bjorn Rydvall predicted that Seagate (New Zealand) - the most experienced team in the world - would win if nothing went wrong for them. It didn't. Nonetheless, after 83.5hrs of racing Haglöfs finished only 2.5hrs behind Seagate. A fine race indeed. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

The race played out across KwaZulu-Natal’s South Coast, the Eastern Cape’s Wild Coast and the rolling hills of the interior. But, for the teams, it won’t only be the spectacular beaches, densely vegetated canyons, impressive waterfalls or open grasslands that will stand out in their memories long after their blisters have healed; but rather their interactions with the local people in the settlements through which they passed.

“We saw a lot of the local people, I really enjoyed this aspect, passing people’s houses, seeing all the school kids walking home, cheering and waving us. It really is a privilege to pass through these areas, places you’d never ever visit as a tourist,” says Nathan Fa’ave, captain of Team Seagate, in an interview with New Zealand’s Sportzhub website.

Interactions with local villagers stood out as a highlight for foreign and local teams. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

Stories abound about tired teams being sheltered for a few hours by villagers.

“I get emotional thinking about last week’s race,” says Adrian Saffy. A racer from Bloemfontein, Saffy has competed in every edition of Expedition Africa.

“The locals accepted us into their huts and gave up their beds for us to rest. The would refuse to let us sit on the floor and insisted on laying mats down for us to rest on. They would run down into the valleys to pick oranges for us to feast on and also shared their precious drinking water from near-empty tanks.”

This region is an ideal destination for a non-stop, multi-day and multi-discipline event like Expedition Africa. In the sport of adventure racing the teams of four navigate between checkpoints and transitions using only a map and compass. With its lack of fences, labyrinth of dirt roads and an abundance of foot paths and cattle tracks, teams really had free reign to take any route to get them to their next point. Some interesting route choice options emerged and friends and family following the live online tracking could almost be heard shouting at their teams “Don’t go that way!”.

In a race of this magnitude, badly blistered and painful feet are par for the course. Surprisingly, by the fifth morning (Thursday), all teams were still in the race. This is almost unheard of. But, by mid-morning attrition had set in. Many teams left ill and injured teammates at transitions, under the care of the event’s medical crew, to continue as three-person teams – aiming only to still reach the finish.

Even before teams got into the canyon towards the end of the the long, 80-kilometre hike, which they started on the first afternoon, many racers had trashed feet. Team Black Diamond (South Africa) decided to sleep in a tea plantation on that second night of the race, before going into the canyon, to see what they could do about healing their feet. It was a good decision because these feet looked decidedly better the next day. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

Within eight hours of the race start, team Bloed en OMO were already four hours behind the leaders. This team of mature racers decided to make up their own route, skipping most checkpoints and travelling instead from transition to transition to keep in the race. Abel van der Merwe (62), Jan Bezuidenhout (61), Nic Labuschagne (52) and Sue Peterkin (47) reached the finish in good spirits on Saturday afternoon, six days and eight hours after starting.

“Our main aim of Expedition Africa is to enrich people’s lives and wave them goodbye with long-lasting memories of their experiences here,” say race organisers Heidi and Stephan Muller. Experienced adventure racers themselves, this dynamic couple have been presenting a range of events for many years, including the four editions of Expedition Africa.

“Through Expedition Africa we’re able to show the incredible beauty and diversity of South Africa through its people and landscapes. Racers pass through areas on foot, bike and kayak that normal tourists would never see of even hear about. It is out there that the magic of our country is most felt.”

Dates and details for the Expedition Africa 2015 have yet to be released. Not wanting to give away too much too soon, the Mullers say only that “it will be another epic destination; one that will entice teams to return once again to experience another wonderful facet of Africa”.

: 'The Canyon' will be spoken about in hushed tones for years to come. Teams doing this section in the day made it through the 10-kilometre length of pools and boulders and slippery rocks in six or seven hours. Teams passing through at night would take 11 to 13 hours to get through - or even more for slow-moving teams near the back. Here Team Painted Wolf (South Africa) negotiates the final section of slippery, rounded rocks. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

Useful Links

Daily race reports

Videos by Steven Freitag

Photo albums

Images by Bruce Viaene and Andreas Strand

QUICK REFERENCE

Event: Expedition Africa

Location: Port Edward, Kwa-Zulu Natal. SOUTH AFRICA

Distance: 550 kilometres

RESULTS Top 5:

  1. Seagate (New Zealand) – 3 days 8 hours 56 minutes
  2. Haglöfs Silva (Sweden) – 3 days 11 hours 29 minutes
  3. Tecnu Adventure Racing (USA) – 3 days 19 hours 57 minutes
  4. Painted Wolf (South Africa / Chile) –  4 days 2 hours 16 minutes
  5. Cyanosis Adventure Racing (South Africa) – 4 days 4 hours 30 minutes

Prizes:

The first-place team receives free entry to the Adventure Racing World Championships, which will be held in Ecuador later this year. But, as Seagate has already received entry following their win at GODZone in New Zealand the prize was awarded to Haglöfs Silva. Tecnu Adventure Racing (USA) qualifies for entry. 

Dates & times:

  • Started on Sunday, 25 May 2014, 07h00
  • Last team in on the night of Saturday, 31 May 2014.

Teams: 40 four-person, mixed-gender teams. 16 international teams.

Countries: 17 countries represented. Participants from South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Ireland, Namibia, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and USA. 

Event Organisers: Stephan and Heidi Muller. Kinetic. www.kineticgear.co.za 

Adventure Racing World Series: www.arworldseries.com

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