I knew it was going to hurt!
What a great event though!
I arrived at our bach in Whitianga late Friday afternoon. I unpacked everything, caught up with my sister and her husband, who were staying at our bach, then headed down to register with Janie in town. A pair of socks - I actually need some!
Helen made us some of her great vegetarian pizza, then off to the race briefing.
At the race briefing, we found out that we were making rafts - we were allowed two inner tubes, 4 pieces of manuka, a 10m piece of rope, plus we could use our 4m compulsory rope.
We also found out we had some diving to do, and paint balling. (The idea was to get some Helium 3 before the Russians did!) www.arcevents.co.nz
We were given the race book, but no maps!
Headed back and thought about the raft - decided to ring a very accommodating local, who came down and made us one - thanks Alastair!!!
Went to bed, and didn't really sleep much.
Down to register at 7 am and got our maps and checkpoints. Great - a raft of about 1 km, then a heap of mountain biking through forestry tracks.
We started at 8 am. We carried the raft about 300 m, then rafted around an IRB, and carried the raft back to the start. We actually did quite well at this!
Then onto the bike, and up hills. It didn't take long for my heart rate to max out, and I was pushing my bike!!!
The bike was hard work, I doubt whether many people would have ridden the whole way. We grabbed and optional checkpoint along the way.
The scenery was great, at the top we could see the top of the Coromandel and Whangapoua Harbour.
Then a FAST decent! We ended up back on the main road, and biked out to Kaimarama Road where the paintballing was. This was great fun. Janie managed to get some Helium 3, and shoot a sniper, but I got hit by the sniper.
Back on our bikes, and off to the 309 Road, where we did rifle shooting. I got all my 5 targets. We had to walk up a steep hill with our bikes, so enjoyed hurtling down the hill - until I realised I'd forgotten my pack. I swore really badly! I walked back up the hill to get my pack - bugger 10 minutes lost!
We got to Transition at Egon Park quite well. We had made good time (for us). I had to dive into a COLD rock pool and dive down to get a disk out of a crayfish pot. Apparently there were lots of eels there, but I didn't see any!
Grabbed something to eat, and our next maps. We needed to get 3 checkpoints. We got the first one, but didn't realise we needed to go further to get the next one (first navigational blunder by me).
The next checkpoint involved walking upstream about a km, diving into a waterfall and getting another clue. We came to a small waterfall and couldn't see anything. We made the call to go further up. We came across another team who said the waterfall was THE waterfall, but the clue was in the top part. BUGGER about an hour lost!
The spirits start to fade a bit when you make mistake like this - but we kept going. Back to the bikes, and into Whitianga. We crossed the waterways canal with our bikes on tubes, got a couple of clues and headed back to base. Our last map was of Simpsons beach. We biked over there, then hiked around the coast to pick up more checkpoints. Another misinterpretation of the map by me meant that we ended up doing lots of rock hopping, swimming in the sea (and two fish jumped beside us!), and rock climbing on the cliffs. It was a little scary. Janie was starting to have had enough. It was taking us a lot longer than it should have. We climbed up a steep hill, got the last two clues, then got back down, back on our bikes and back to base. We finished in under 12 hours, and only missed one check point.
It was great fun, but I am feeling hacked off about my navigational skills, and my lack of fitness. It is embarrassing when your team mate is a lot fitter than you - I let the team down. BUT I know now that I have to do something every day to keep fit, and am looking forward to my next challenge, which will be the Spring Challenge in Motueka.
No photos yet sorry - didn't take the camera - it would have got too wet!
