McCain have been on foot since around 15h15 on Saturday, 22 May. Their latest tracking dot shows 14h26 (just over an hour ago) on Sunday, 23 May – and they’ve still got a stretch to go. Luckily this later section looks flatter and faster. They’re currently in a joint-ish third place with Merrell/Akali. Ahead of them are Orion and Blackheart – these teams have blasted through their trekking section. Our team definitely did sleep in the early hours of morning (Merrell too); I’m not sure that those ahead did.
There will be no time split update until they complete this leg, by reaching CP17 at Mulligan. It has taken Orion about 7hr to get from here McCain are now to their current position. This means our team will be out there night – again (they’re 8hrs ahead of us – so it’s already 16h40 there).
Orion (navy), Blackheart (light grey), McCain (dark grey), Merrell (beige)
Looks like McCain took a little detour (dak grey)
From the XPDwebsite. Updated at 14h52 (06h52 SA), Sun.
Latest news from the early hours is that Orion Adventure (40) have lost the two hour lead they began this leg with (possibly they stopped to sleep) and are now neck and neck with Blackheart.com.au (1) (who slept on the paddle). Only a couple of kilometres behind them are McCain Adventure Addicts (51) (who had planned to sleep 1.5 hours during the night) and Merrell/Alkali (42), followed by City Bike Depot (27) and www.alpineepic.co.nz (25). It seems that SCAR (23) might be resting out the dark hours at Nine Mile (CP15) before embarking on the trek. To put this trek leg in perspective for the other teams, so far the leaders have covered <20km in >10 hours.