Team Hawkstone: What an awesome race. Thanks Stephan and Heidi for putting on such a great race. It was well organized and executed and I believe it was great value for money!!
Thanks to Adrian and Greg for racing with me you guys are great to race with. Six years ago I weighed 104 Kg and could not have contemplated mixing it up at the front of the field in an Adventure Race in fact at the time I did not even know what AR was. Now I get to race with my son and awesome friends.
Leg 1 – 14km paddle on a plastic three up on a dam! You are cramped and a proper paddle stroke is impossible. We managed better than most dropped Greg of for the run and continued to a point where it seemed quicker to run and swim to CP2 bad mistake as we were sent back by the marshal to return with the plastic. This got us soaked and cost us time. The race instructions clearly state paddle to CP2.
Leg 2 – 10km Cycle uneventful.
Leg 3 – 13km Hike. Took a while for me to get my legs warmed up and working properly. Adrian’s nav was spot on. I am glad we found the quarry in Daylight!! Took a while in transition to get kitted up for the cold night ahead.
Leg 4 – 30km Cycle. Uneventful thanks to Adrian’s Nav. Adrian took fall 1 in a rut while looking at his map board. Adrian shouted a warning that there was a car coming from behind only to be overtaken by Cyanosis going at least 5 km / h faster than we were. Just before transitions they came flying past from the front going back to a CP they missed. Greg picked up a puncture just before transitions which we fixed before we paddled as we knew we would be frozen and not in the mood when we returned.
Leg 5 – 3 km paddle easier than first paddle as I could lean back against the dry bag with our kit strapped to the back of the plastic. We were met by Susan who made us hot chocolate what a treat thanks.
Leg 6 – 7km Orienteering. Not our strong point yet struggled with OP3 ended up on the wrong side of the fence and had to back track. We collected every black jack in the area though, they like Powerstrech tights.
Leg 7 – 3 km paddle. Back to bikes it was now properly cold the fire was most welcome to defrost when we got there Adrian did not have his warm tights so he soldiered on in just his cycling shorts!
Leg 8 – 50 km Cycle. Cold very cold fingers and toes took strain. Stopped to warm up at the guard hut while we re-arranged our map. Adrian took fall 2 & 3 a bit harder this time. All well up to CP 20 then the problem
We could not find a way through to ( T4 ) so we hiked our bikes up and over the mountain to arrive at ( T4 ) only for Kobus to tell us we were at T5. Adrian had not plotted T4 on our map! Kobus pointed us in the right direction and off we went to T4. Moral two people check your map twice with the race instruction book.
Leg 9 – 6 km Hike / Abseil. CP21 was further downstream than on the map Heidi found us on the bridge and pointed us in the right direction Luckily it was still dark and we found the flashing light. Greg had fight with the sleep monster and can now say he can walk and sleep at the same time. CP23 Big Tree for the record there were quite a few big trees!! Eventually we found it. The abseil was great.
Leg 10 – 2km Paddle. It was just light there was a light wind from the front and we were finished.
The finish was a welcome sight then a hot shower and kit sort out and Adrian rushed of back to Bloem to watch the England Germany game.
Lessons learnt
You can not have enough warm clothes.
I have not yet found the solution to cold toes and fingers.
Adventure Racing = Navigation Adrian’s nav made this race a pleasure but you cannot navigate to a point you have not put on your map! Check and check again to avoid costly mistakes.
Look at how the race unfolded over the duration of the event (see results on www.kineticgear.co.za – look at the times between teams Hawkstone, Olympus, First Ascent Cyanosis and Gijima)
Check out the route we followed by following this link. Unfortunately it stopped recording at T5 so the final paddle back to the start is not included. I love the i-GotU logger it makes for really interesting reflection on the race and at 20 grams it is a piece of kit I don’t mind Greg carrying.
http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/53459
By Alec Alvierinos | Team Hawkstone | Kinetic Full Moon, Bronkhorstspruit, 26-27 June 2010
Alec, I’ll tell you something about the ‘Big Tree’. Clinton had said something to me like “Don’t bother searching all the trees. It’s the dead one”. Well, it is winter so they all look dead. The ‘Big Tree’ was the one I automatically looked at because 1) it was the only one on its own; and 2) it was the only one at the confluence of the two rivers – the others were along the tributary, not at the confluence. I didn’t get why he was confused.
Ad for T4… I did exactly the same thing as Adrian. I’d double-checked that I had all the CPs but didn’t count the transition numbers. Doh!