On the weekend three of us; Grant, myself and Del went for a paddle. It was an average weekend weather wise, but I took the opportunioty to try out a sea kayak, cause I don't have enough boats and I need one of these to add to the stable. Del and I planned to take the MTB's out before hand and my hard tail sitting on the roof reminded me that I still haven't got my duallie back from the shop.
Our MTB's were freighted back from Africa to avoid the ridiculous excess baggage fees we would have been slugged if we tried to bring them with us. During the race we were forced to swim with our bikes across a salt water river. So when we finished the race we carefully rinsed them, sprayed them liberally with WD40 before packing them away in their bike boxes. We finally picked them up from Aus customs some three weeks later. Customs and quarantine were as big an epic as any all day ride in the bush with no compass. In summary:
Join a queue
Fill out a form and rejoin the queue
Hand in the form and join join a queue to take a number
Take a number
Join a queue
Be told you can't get your bikes inspected; come back in two days
Argue
Join queue
Get another form
Fill it in and rejoin queue
Hand it in
Get another number
Join the second queue
It's too late to get your bikes inspected
Argue
Wait
Go pick up your bikes
Computer systems down come back tomorrow
Argue
Wait
Get bikes
Join queue
Get bikes inpsected;
You get the picture, if you ever find yourself in the same situation, persevere, don't stop smiling, flirt where possible and don't take 'come back tomorrow' as an answer.
Anyway looking at bike # 2 was a sad reminder that salt water, three weeks in a box and another week before getting to the bike shop is not good for your bike. The guys at the shop tell me that there is salt crystals in my bottom braket, my frame is full of oxidised aluminium and every bit that could rust, has, The pivots are OK though. Looks like I'll be paying for this race for a while yet.
Regardless of that sob story, the weekend paddle was awesome. We went through the shore break, straight into a pod of dolphins, paddled along in close proximity to them for 20 minutes or so, then paddled back and played in a nice 2-4 foot break for another hour, trying desperately not to murder young children learning to surf with 25kg of out of control, rampaging sea kayak. Great fun!!
Stew
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Post Race Shenanigans
The 12 hours after any race can be summed up easily ‘Sleeeeep’. Although the sleep is regularly punctuated by; ‘Eeeeting’. Such it was after the Bull. Del and Luke, after cleaning up and having an initial sleep went off in search of food, while Grant and I continued to sleep. In fact Grant didn’t raise his bones until around 6:30 that evening, and only then because I woke him so we could do some more eating.
The next day is cleaning and sorting gear. Gear boxes and bike boxes inevitably contain the smelliest, dirtiest, hard to identify stuff you can imagine. It never ceases to amaze me, but while your racing, in your desperation for carbs, you can squeeze every last drop of gel from a packet. But put that dessicated wrapper in a gear box and it will continue to ooze gel over every piece of kit in the box. So after two days of sitting in the hot sun, when you finally come to clean out your box, every sock, every glove, the handlebars of your bike, your one clean t-shirt will be covered in a mixture of horrible sticky red, orange and yellow gel. The only solution is; if it can bend put it in the wash, if it’s solid then hose it down. If you can’t decide, hose it first then either, chuck it out or wash it, simple. Then once everything is sorted out, be prepared to continue to return and have returned various pieces of kit (especially socks) for the next couple of months from your other team mates.
The after race party was the usual affair of drinks, plates overflowing with food, people sleeping at the table and dancing afterwards. The KEEN Torq’ers put on a brave show, but the honors for the final leg had to go to the Russian girls from Areena, who can really move it, and the guys from the video crew, who can still move it regardless of how much they can drink. Special mention has to go to the South African girls from Dew Point, who made an emotional entrance on their MTB’s during the ceremony, some 10 hours after the official finish of the race.
We kissed Lukie goodbye, as he was flying out on Monday, while Del, Grant and myself started our overland tour to Johannesburg before flying out on Thursday. The idea was to cram as much sightseeing into the next four days as possible. To start the itinerary we drove out to the Southern Drakensburg Ranges, to ascend the Sani Pass the following day. This 4WD track climbs 1300m to an altitude of 3000m over 8 km. A steep but relatively straight forward climb, the fastest descent over the 8km is held by a MTB in just under 13 minutes. Some 4 minutes faster than the fastest motorbike and significantly quicker than any car. The Sani Pass sits in the country of 
Lesotho 
(Lah-soo-too), and is populated by the Basutu who speak Masutu (something like that) They are the descendants of the tribes who fled from the persecution of the Zulus under King Shaka. They live a hard life on a barren plateau, (when we were there it was well under 0 deg with a biting wind), tending sheep and goats with some supplementary income from the tourist trade. A quick beer was had at what was once the highest pub in Africa then it was onwards and downwards to the midlands and the town of Howick.
Howick provided an excellent hotel. The Pre requisites for this are comfy beds for sleeping and good food for eating. SA is a great place to eat. We managed three courses of gourmet quality food, two bottles of wine and five desserts for under $30 a head…..how good is that. The next day was spent flying through the trees on zip lines at Karkloof. This was the best. The longest line was 180m and you fly over or through the trees and tremendous speed, at times up to 30m off the forest floor.. Then it was up to Spion Kop for some horse riding and some more eating and sleeping.
Spion Kop was very olde worlde British Empire type stuff. Reading in the lounge, overlooking the property, with a scotch in one hand and the Jack Russell terriers at you feet, was all very comfortable. The three course meal followed by cognac, cheese platter and dessert wine was equally as pleasing. The next day we rose just in time for a cooked breakfast before rushing off to go horse riding through the local game reserve. Seeing Red Hartebeest, blue wildebeest, zebra, impala, jackals and kudu up close and personal from horseback was very special. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the endangered White Rhinos, but we did see evidence of their passing.
From Spion Kop we headed back to J’Burg to meet up with Ben. Ben loves crotches, bums, has a fetish for drink bottles and socks, and when he’s not busy with all of that he looks after Ian, who raced with team Kreatures at The Bull. Ian’s hospitality was typically South African, even if he was an ex pat Pom. We ate his food, drank his beer, slept in his house, used his washing machine and he even took us to the local J’Burg tourist market, which was way above and beyond the call of duty. Messages from home confirmed that both Grant and I both had kids bursting with excitement at seeing their dads again. There is certainly nothing like being swamped as you re-enter your home. So it was with mixed emotions that we boarded the plane on Thursday morning. It would have been great to have had more time to travel through Africa, but the reality was anything less than 3 months was never going to be enough.
As for what’s next for the KEEN Torq’ers…….watch this space.
The next day is cleaning and sorting gear. Gear boxes and bike boxes inevitably contain the smelliest, dirtiest, hard to identify stuff you can imagine. It never ceases to amaze me, but while your racing, in your desperation for carbs, you can squeeze every last drop of gel from a packet. But put that dessicated wrapper in a gear box and it will continue to ooze gel over every piece of kit in the box. So after two days of sitting in the hot sun, when you finally come to clean out your box, every sock, every glove, the handlebars of your bike, your one clean t-shirt will be covered in a mixture of horrible sticky red, orange and yellow gel. The only solution is; if it can bend put it in the wash, if it’s solid then hose it down. If you can’t decide, hose it first then either, chuck it out or wash it, simple. Then once everything is sorted out, be prepared to continue to return and have returned various pieces of kit (especially socks) for the next couple of months from your other team mates.
The after race party was the usual affair of drinks, plates overflowing with food, people sleeping at the table and dancing afterwards. The KEEN Torq’ers put on a brave show, but the honors for the final leg had to go to the Russian girls from Areena, who can really move it, and the guys from the video crew, who can still move it regardless of how much they can drink. Special mention has to go to the South African girls from Dew Point, who made an emotional entrance on their MTB’s during the ceremony, some 10 hours after the official finish of the race.
We kissed Lukie goodbye, as he was flying out on Monday, while Del, Grant and myself started our overland tour to Johannesburg before flying out on Thursday. The idea was to cram as much sightseeing into the next four days as possible. To start the itinerary we drove out to the Southern Drakensburg Ranges, to ascend the Sani Pass the following day. This 4WD track climbs 1300m to an altitude of 3000m over 8 km. A steep but relatively straight forward climb, the fastest descent over the 8km is held by a MTB in just under 13 minutes. Some 4 minutes faster than the fastest motorbike and significantly quicker than any car. The Sani Pass sits in the country of 
Lesotho 
(Lah-soo-too), and is populated by the Basutu who speak Masutu (something like that) They are the descendants of the tribes who fled from the persecution of the Zulus under King Shaka. They live a hard life on a barren plateau, (when we were there it was well under 0 deg with a biting wind), tending sheep and goats with some supplementary income from the tourist trade. A quick beer was had at what was once the highest pub in Africa then it was onwards and downwards to the midlands and the town of Howick.
Howick provided an excellent hotel. The Pre requisites for this are comfy beds for sleeping and good food for eating. SA is a great place to eat. We managed three courses of gourmet quality food, two bottles of wine and five desserts for under $30 a head…..how good is that. The next day was spent flying through the trees on zip lines at Karkloof. This was the best. The longest line was 180m and you fly over or through the trees and tremendous speed, at times up to 30m off the forest floor.. Then it was up to Spion Kop for some horse riding and some more eating and sleeping.
Spion Kop was very olde worlde British Empire type stuff. Reading in the lounge, overlooking the property, with a scotch in one hand and the Jack Russell terriers at you feet, was all very comfortable. The three course meal followed by cognac, cheese platter and dessert wine was equally as pleasing. The next day we rose just in time for a cooked breakfast before rushing off to go horse riding through the local game reserve. Seeing Red Hartebeest, blue wildebeest, zebra, impala, jackals and kudu up close and personal from horseback was very special. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the endangered White Rhinos, but we did see evidence of their passing.
From Spion Kop we headed back to J’Burg to meet up with Ben. Ben loves crotches, bums, has a fetish for drink bottles and socks, and when he’s not busy with all of that he looks after Ian, who raced with team Kreatures at The Bull. Ian’s hospitality was typically South African, even if he was an ex pat Pom. We ate his food, drank his beer, slept in his house, used his washing machine and he even took us to the local J’Burg tourist market, which was way above and beyond the call of duty. Messages from home confirmed that both Grant and I both had kids bursting with excitement at seeing their dads again. There is certainly nothing like being swamped as you re-enter your home. So it was with mixed emotions that we boarded the plane on Thursday morning. It would have been great to have had more time to travel through Africa, but the reality was anything less than 3 months was never going to be enough.As for what’s next for the KEEN Torq’ers…….watch this space.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Day 6. The Final Push
Sleep deprivation is an insiduous thing. We have all heard of various symptoms including; poor decision making, mumbling, staggering and hallucinations (sleepmonsters). When we fell asleep in the dunes we had planned to get up at 4:30, and in fact, Del, Luke and Stew all did wake up at this time and then, comfortable in the knowledge that the other two had decided that we all needed another 2 hours sleep, settled back down to get up at 6:30. When we next woke up we silently got our gear together and moved on, careful not to wake the Russian girls from team Areena, who had decided to sleep adjacent to us in the dunes. Back at the river a couple of local lads ferried us and our old friends Outdoor Extreme, who had arrived at the river at the same time as us, across the river in their Canadian Canoes.
On the way to the wreck of the Jacaranda (which was a CP) the issue of the extra two hours sleep came up in conversation.
Stew: "I can't say I'm sorry you two decided on another 2 hours sleep, but how come, three hours should have been heaps?"
Luke: "How should I know, you and Del made the decision not me"
Stew: "No way, Del told me that the two of you decided to wait until dawn, Del; are you playing us off against one another, so you can get more sleep?"
Del: "Piss off, as if I'd be the one needing more sleep? You were the one that said wait until 6:30"
Grant; "Hey guys, what's going on? I feel great, that sleep was the best, Gee Luke's good to cuddle up to, how far to the next CP? must be time for some more video, how's everybody else feeling? it was good to get ahead of the Russian girls wasn't it? I wonder if we're still ahead of the Americans? cereal in a bag tastes good hey! Do you reckon we're top 10 still, Gee I hope so, my knee hurts, how's everybody else feeling"
Stew: "Well we should try and push on to the finish now without any more sleeps"
Luke: "We're not stopping again"
The wild coast lived up to it's reputation; rugged and wild, we were treated to 5-6 foot sets and
perfectly clean breakers rolling along the reefs, empty, except for the white pointer sharks and a pod of pilot whales (I think, or they could have been orcas or bloody big dolphins). We kept the pace hard and raced to Seagulls Ocean Resort. This was were the CP's ran out. We were issued with the rest of the course at this point. Lukie quickly copied down the location of the new CP's while the rest of us readied the bikes and got our gear and food organised. This was the last time we would see our gear boxes, so everything we needed for the rest of the race needed to be carried from here to home. 
The last ropes section was only 5 km up the road, it required only two of us to complete an abseil and Jumar. So we hurried on up to it, as these sections are notorious bottlenecks.
While Luke and Del rearranged gear and plotted the rest of the course, Grant and Stew got to play around in a waterfall. A quick 15 m abseil down the waterfall, followed by a swim across a brain shrinkingly cold pool, snap a CP, swim back, Jumar up, try and wipe the grin off your face, cause it's so much bloody fun, back on the bikes and resume racing.
The next section of MTB was not a happy one for us. We failed to find the track down to the river until we bunderbashed and hike-a-biked across a hill for 30 minutes, when we eventually got down to the river we had to swim our bikes across it (and it was salt water. Yes, bikes do float, and yes they will need a rebuild when they get home, and yes Grant did cry as his 'Kenny' Cannondale Rush hit the water and yes we did manage to hit high tide; AGAIN). Once across the river we headed back to the coast. At least this time there was enough wet sand to ride our bikes along, until we ran out of sand and had to carry the bikes over coastal rocks. The track then went up onto the sea cliffs and we followed along a narrow coastal track probably just wide enough to land a skinny seagull. Riding along, I though I heard one of those skinny seagulls calling out. I turned around in time to see Del tumble off her bike and down about three meters, self arresting a couple of meters above the next sheer drop. My chivalrous gesture of a helping hand was abruptly spurned, and my sympathetic description of the chain of events that led to Del's unfortunate demise was only grunted at, any hint of smile, laugh or even chuckle for the next hour was countered with a glare that would freeze your blood.
When the decision needed to be made at the next CP to take either the inland route or the
coastal route, it was not hard to work out which way Del was going to vote. Grant too had seen his bike in salt water and sand too much already and Luke was worried that if there was a lot of rocks we could lose more time, so the decision was made. In the end we arrived back at the coast after a very long inland route which culminated in climbing a razor wire gate with the sign; "This property is protected by tactical response troops". The local farm worker assured us no-one had been shot in a loooong time and 'Yes this was the road to the beach', so expecting to see the orange dot of a laser guided sniper rifle on our chests at any moment we headed off with some trepidation. Thanking God it had been a fast and downhill all the way to the beach, we started the last coasteering section on our bikes before heading in Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve.
With other teams hot on our heels we grabbed a CP and headed off to the rogaine section. It was in this TA that we realised we had overtaken the Uruguans and the French Team, Epitact, who we'd last seen on day two of the race, we also still had Extreme Outdoors hot on our heels and Pro Pepto ahead of us. Pro Pepto had taken off 1 hour ahead of us on the beach trek from Mazepha Bay, so with our long sleep in the Dunes were an unknown factor. The rogaine was frustrating with one of the CP's not where it was shown on the map. We lost contact with the French, and not knowing whether they were in front or behind us, pushed hard to collect the rest of the CP's and get back to our bikes. We still had several CP's to collect before starting the next paddle section. These proved difficult to find in the dark and we lost 30 minutes after we missed a track turnoff to a deserted farmhouse, we had been going for 18 hours with only two 20 minute breaks, sleep deprivation was starting to kick in again for some of us, while the pressure of maintaining our spot in the top 10 was playing on the others. It was a tense time, which was releaved by the sight of wild game in our bike lights. In particular, as Del found a CP in an erosion gully, Grant and I from the road above could see the shapes of about half a dozen lions as they stalked towrds her until they were about 5 meters away and looking hungrily down at her in the gully as she blissfully unaware, stamped the control card. The lions were in an enclosure,so there was never any real risk of her being eaten, I just hope the fence was in better condition than some of the others we had crossed in the game reserve.
We moved on to the Areena game reserve where we were chased by a tame giraffe and then
after some running around finally found the TA to the kayaks. Getting into the boats we were amped about getting to the finish line, just two more CP's to go, a 4 km paddle and 3 km trek. Home for breakfast. The paddle was straightforward, although the tide was again racing, thankfully it was heading in the right direction for a change. Now only one more CP, but we had seen the French team walking to the boats soon after we started the paddle, so they were hot on our heels. The last CP was on top of a sand dune. The dune was covered in the thickest, prickliest scrub Hano could find. I went up first, and lacking confidence in Hano's CP location descriptions, gave up when it wasn't on the high point of the dune, then Luke went up, then Grant, finally Luke came down with the prize and we headed up the road.
It was a very relieved team that left the vicinity of the sand dune and didn't have to race any other teams up the hill to the finish line. The relief was tangible as we headed towards the line. Joking, and laughing and looking forward to a shower and a sleep [ ed. strangely enough I think Grant and Luke shared a single bed that morning, the habit just too strong to break straight away]. We crossed the line in eigth place and showered each other in peach champagne. The French came in just 20 minutes behind us and Pepto Pro aboubt 2 hours in front. I think we again, surprised a lot of people with how well we performed. It was a super tough race, even by international standards, with close to 22,000 vertical meteres of climbing and descending. We came through in good health and in good spirits. While many teams wilted over the closing stages of the course, we were able to keep racing strongly and made up at least four places and held off another strong finishing SA team.
Thanks go to our sponsors; KEEN footwear and Torq Nutrition Australia, the race directors Hano and Sonja Otto, for putting on a superb race, our families for all the encouragement, sympathy, support, compassion, patience and money and of course my team mates who are the best bunch of guys you could ever hope to hang out with and who make any and all the deprivation worthwhile.
Stewart
On the way to the wreck of the Jacaranda (which was a CP) the issue of the extra two hours sleep came up in conversation.Stew: "I can't say I'm sorry you two decided on another 2 hours sleep, but how come, three hours should have been heaps?"
Luke: "How should I know, you and Del made the decision not me"
Stew: "No way, Del told me that the two of you decided to wait until dawn, Del; are you playing us off against one another, so you can get more sleep?"
Del: "Piss off, as if I'd be the one needing more sleep? You were the one that said wait until 6:30"
Grant; "Hey guys, what's going on? I feel great, that sleep was the best, Gee Luke's good to cuddle up to, how far to the next CP? must be time for some more video, how's everybody else feeling? it was good to get ahead of the Russian girls wasn't it? I wonder if we're still ahead of the Americans? cereal in a bag tastes good hey! Do you reckon we're top 10 still, Gee I hope so, my knee hurts, how's everybody else feeling"
Stew: "Well we should try and push on to the finish now without any more sleeps"
Luke: "We're not stopping again"
The wild coast lived up to it's reputation; rugged and wild, we were treated to 5-6 foot sets and
perfectly clean breakers rolling along the reefs, empty, except for the white pointer sharks and a pod of pilot whales (I think, or they could have been orcas or bloody big dolphins). We kept the pace hard and raced to Seagulls Ocean Resort. This was were the CP's ran out. We were issued with the rest of the course at this point. Lukie quickly copied down the location of the new CP's while the rest of us readied the bikes and got our gear and food organised. This was the last time we would see our gear boxes, so everything we needed for the rest of the race needed to be carried from here to home. 
The last ropes section was only 5 km up the road, it required only two of us to complete an abseil and Jumar. So we hurried on up to it, as these sections are notorious bottlenecks.While Luke and Del rearranged gear and plotted the rest of the course, Grant and Stew got to play around in a waterfall. A quick 15 m abseil down the waterfall, followed by a swim across a brain shrinkingly cold pool, snap a CP, swim back, Jumar up, try and wipe the grin off your face, cause it's so much bloody fun, back on the bikes and resume racing.
The next section of MTB was not a happy one for us. We failed to find the track down to the river until we bunderbashed and hike-a-biked across a hill for 30 minutes, when we eventually got down to the river we had to swim our bikes across it (and it was salt water. Yes, bikes do float, and yes they will need a rebuild when they get home, and yes Grant did cry as his 'Kenny' Cannondale Rush hit the water and yes we did manage to hit high tide; AGAIN). Once across the river we headed back to the coast. At least this time there was enough wet sand to ride our bikes along, until we ran out of sand and had to carry the bikes over coastal rocks. The track then went up onto the sea cliffs and we followed along a narrow coastal track probably just wide enough to land a skinny seagull. Riding along, I though I heard one of those skinny seagulls calling out. I turned around in time to see Del tumble off her bike and down about three meters, self arresting a couple of meters above the next sheer drop. My chivalrous gesture of a helping hand was abruptly spurned, and my sympathetic description of the chain of events that led to Del's unfortunate demise was only grunted at, any hint of smile, laugh or even chuckle for the next hour was countered with a glare that would freeze your blood.
When the decision needed to be made at the next CP to take either the inland route or the
coastal route, it was not hard to work out which way Del was going to vote. Grant too had seen his bike in salt water and sand too much already and Luke was worried that if there was a lot of rocks we could lose more time, so the decision was made. In the end we arrived back at the coast after a very long inland route which culminated in climbing a razor wire gate with the sign; "This property is protected by tactical response troops". The local farm worker assured us no-one had been shot in a loooong time and 'Yes this was the road to the beach', so expecting to see the orange dot of a laser guided sniper rifle on our chests at any moment we headed off with some trepidation. Thanking God it had been a fast and downhill all the way to the beach, we started the last coasteering section on our bikes before heading in Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve.With other teams hot on our heels we grabbed a CP and headed off to the rogaine section. It was in this TA that we realised we had overtaken the Uruguans and the French Team, Epitact, who we'd last seen on day two of the race, we also still had Extreme Outdoors hot on our heels and Pro Pepto ahead of us. Pro Pepto had taken off 1 hour ahead of us on the beach trek from Mazepha Bay, so with our long sleep in the Dunes were an unknown factor. The rogaine was frustrating with one of the CP's not where it was shown on the map. We lost contact with the French, and not knowing whether they were in front or behind us, pushed hard to collect the rest of the CP's and get back to our bikes. We still had several CP's to collect before starting the next paddle section. These proved difficult to find in the dark and we lost 30 minutes after we missed a track turnoff to a deserted farmhouse, we had been going for 18 hours with only two 20 minute breaks, sleep deprivation was starting to kick in again for some of us, while the pressure of maintaining our spot in the top 10 was playing on the others. It was a tense time, which was releaved by the sight of wild game in our bike lights. In particular, as Del found a CP in an erosion gully, Grant and I from the road above could see the shapes of about half a dozen lions as they stalked towrds her until they were about 5 meters away and looking hungrily down at her in the gully as she blissfully unaware, stamped the control card. The lions were in an enclosure,so there was never any real risk of her being eaten, I just hope the fence was in better condition than some of the others we had crossed in the game reserve.
We moved on to the Areena game reserve where we were chased by a tame giraffe and then
after some running around finally found the TA to the kayaks. Getting into the boats we were amped about getting to the finish line, just two more CP's to go, a 4 km paddle and 3 km trek. Home for breakfast. The paddle was straightforward, although the tide was again racing, thankfully it was heading in the right direction for a change. Now only one more CP, but we had seen the French team walking to the boats soon after we started the paddle, so they were hot on our heels. The last CP was on top of a sand dune. The dune was covered in the thickest, prickliest scrub Hano could find. I went up first, and lacking confidence in Hano's CP location descriptions, gave up when it wasn't on the high point of the dune, then Luke went up, then Grant, finally Luke came down with the prize and we headed up the road.It was a very relieved team that left the vicinity of the sand dune and didn't have to race any other teams up the hill to the finish line. The relief was tangible as we headed towards the line. Joking, and laughing and looking forward to a shower and a sleep [ ed. strangely enough I think Grant and Luke shared a single bed that morning, the habit just too strong to break straight away]. We crossed the line in eigth place and showered each other in peach champagne. The French came in just 20 minutes behind us and Pepto Pro aboubt 2 hours in front. I think we again, surprised a lot of people with how well we performed. It was a super tough race, even by international standards, with close to 22,000 vertical meteres of climbing and descending. We came through in good health and in good spirits. While many teams wilted over the closing stages of the course, we were able to keep racing strongly and made up at least four places and held off another strong finishing SA team.
Thanks go to our sponsors; KEEN footwear and Torq Nutrition Australia, the race directors Hano and Sonja Otto, for putting on a superb race, our families for all the encouragement, sympathy, support, compassion, patience and money and of course my team mates who are the best bunch of guys you could ever hope to hang out with and who make any and all the deprivation worthwhile.
Stewart
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Day 5
Even though we overslept , there was no great hurry to get out of transition. Local teams had advised us that we didn't want to get to the Kei river crossing before dawn, it was a wide deep crossing that was potentially dangerous for the unwary. We set out from the TA with the intent on getting to the river at around 4:30-5:00 AM, if the locals were exagerrating we'd have the jump on them, if they weren't. we wouldn't have to spend to much time waiting on the river bank for the sunrise. The weather was in distinct contrast to previous mornings. Them temperature could only be described as 'balmy' as we cycled towards out rendevous with the river. Nothing is as easy as it may seem in Africa. As we descended to the river, the temperature dropped quickly, making the thought of a river crossing decidedly unpleasant. THe Uragauy team had been tooling around the river bank for over an hour when we got there, and we scoped out the river for a further 30 minutes until we discovered a relatively safe and easy crossing several hundred yards downstream. We waded across with nothing more than wet feet. Any difficulties had been well exagerated. The Uruguans gleefully followed, then took off into the Transkei.
Once we found the road into the Transkei region we were quickly initiated into this region of SA. 
We had been warned the roads would be poorly maintained, what we didn't realise was that the whole region was lost in time. On one side of the Kei river, modern farming practices and fast well kept roads were the order of the day. On the other side, people lived in regional villages, there was no running water or electricity and people seemed to live a semi-subsistent lifestyle.
We had been warned the roads would be poorly maintained, what we didn't realise was that the whole region was lost in time. On one side of the Kei river, modern farming practices and fast well kept roads were the order of the day. On the other side, people lived in regional villages, there was no running water or electricity and people seemed to live a semi-subsistent lifestyle.
Navigation in the Transkei was 
challenging. Tracks and roads were marked on the maps, but you had no way of knowing whether a track was rutted single track only suitable for hike a bike or two lane 4WD track. Often they went from one to the next and back with random abandon, so that you would be flying along making great time one minute, only to find yourself crawling along at snail's pace the next.
challenging. Tracks and roads were marked on the maps, but you had no way of knowing whether a track was rutted single track only suitable for hike a bike or two lane 4WD track. Often they went from one to the next and back with random abandon, so that you would be flying along making great time one minute, only to find yourself crawling along at snail's pace the next.The locals were enthusiastic in with their cheering and their directions. Though when asking directions, questions had to be carefully worded. "Is this the right direction?" would always be met with a wide grin and a nodding head; regardless of which direction you pointed. "Which way would you go?" might have you going via a relatives house several kms out of the way. "What is the fastest way?" proved to be the safest, but you had to be prepared for everyone to have their input and then you needed to choose the option from the half a dozen different routes you were offered. Offering a local the map was just not worth the effort, as you woudl soon draw a crowd all offering an opinion and generally none of them seemed relevant.
We passed through village after village; the country seemed to support an impossibly large number of people and you could only imagine what it could be like in times of drought, when there is not enough food for everyone, but we were there in times of plenty and the kids were well fed and healthy. The air was often thick with smoke from burning off and several times we passed within meters of flames 6 foot high. This was Del's day to suffer and we paused briefly for a cool off in a river. Again it never fails to surprise me, the rejuvinating effect this can have. After struggling to stay positive, Del was back to her bubbly self (almost), while the bike seat was still a challenge, cooling her feet had reduced them in size and she could now walk without significant pain. While a 15 minute stop may be agonizingly long when you feel like your in a hurry, it probably made us up well over an hour, because we were able to move faster and for longer for the rest of the day.
We cycled down to the Wild Coast for the next section of the race, sorry to leave the beauty and simplicity of the interior, but thankful that we would be walking along the coast, and Lukie should be able to give his brain a rest for a while.
Arriving in Mazeppa Bay we had a 45 minute rest after paking our bikes up, with the idea of pushing as far as we could before resting. Consequently the march along the coast was fast. Lukie was glad of the break and even gave the maps to Grant, as a consequence of not having to think his brain shut down and trying to stay awake became a problem for the first time in the race. By the time Grant was walking like a Zombie there was no need to even consult the map, 'just keep walking until you run into a river'. We timed our arrival at the river poorly, it was nearly high tide, but the water was still running in at a frightening speed. The decision was made to get a few hours sleep in the dunes before trying to continue. It was relatively mild on the coast compared with the high country, but some pretty tight spooning was still justified. [ed. Grant and Luke haven't still been able to look each other in the eyes since that night]
Friday, August 29, 2008
Day 4
Having arrived at the TA at 9:00 PM, we had an extra long sleep and were still on the road for the next trek at just after 2:00 AM. Lukie decided to avoid the plunging back into the river valley and climbing back out and instead kept to the high ground and the roads, although this did mean we bunder bashed for a couple of kilometers it was significantly less thant the more direct route. It also added several kilometers to our total trekking distance. 
But soon after sunrise as we reached the first CP (which was manned) we were informed we had made up several hours on those teams ahead of us. The rest of the morning and early afternoon had us slogging up and down hills in the hottest weather so far. At the top of one we were informed by Gerry, the landowner: "I know the country you've already covered and I know where your going, believe me, what you're doing would test the elite troops of any country". I didn't feel very elite, hot tired, dehydrated and foot sore, pretty much covered it. By the time we had descended back to the river, we had run out of water and most of our enthusiasm. We filled up our water bottles as 
far out into the muddy stream as we could and waited for the thirty minutes to pass before our purification tablets cleaned the water. Then it was more bunderbashing up a creek bed before we made it the bottom of the 
Jumaring section.
We waited for 15 minutes while the team ahead of us ascended the ropes then headed up behind them. I waited at the top of the first pitch for Del to come up not realising there were two more 50 meter pitches to go. The views of the valley were breathtaking but we didn't hand around to admire them for too long. Even though we were all novices at ascending ropes we took to it well and climbed quickly, Even the cold beer the marshalls had waiting for us at the top didn't distract us for too long. We set off quickly with confusing directions and stories of Russians mad with drink 
accosting teams along the way, to get the next
section of
bunderbashing completed before 
dark. The African scub is thick and ALL of the vegetation has either prickles or thorns, it's not a place you want to be trying to find your way through with a head torch if it can be avoided.
Along the way we again teamed up with the same South African team, Extreme Outdoors, as we had the night before. This time it was their turn to aid us with local knowledge and help us find a road through thick scrub. We found out later that the female in their team lived locally and actually trained on some of these tracks. So we marched along with them up the final hill and as thanks, left them as we moved ahead towards the next hunting lodge. The hospitality was, as we were beginning to expect first rate. All the rooms at the lodge we full, so mattresses were laid out in the dining room for the adventure racers and all types of food and drink were laid on. One of the race doctors was summoned to attend to Del and Grant's feet, before we again snuggled up under blankets supplied by the lodge and overslept our alarms.
But soon after sunrise as we reached the first CP (which was manned) we were informed we had made up several hours on those teams ahead of us. The rest of the morning and early afternoon had us slogging up and down hills in the hottest weather so far. At the top of one we were informed by Gerry, the landowner: "I know the country you've already covered and I know where your going, believe me, what you're doing would test the elite troops of any country". I didn't feel very elite, hot tired, dehydrated and foot sore, pretty much covered it. By the time we had descended back to the river, we had run out of water and most of our enthusiasm. We filled up our water bottles as 
far out into the muddy stream as we could and waited for the thirty minutes to pass before our purification tablets cleaned the water. Then it was more bunderbashing up a creek bed before we made it the bottom of the 
Jumaring section.
We waited for 15 minutes while the team ahead of us ascended the ropes then headed up behind them. I waited at the top of the first pitch for Del to come up not realising there were two more 50 meter pitches to go. The views of the valley were breathtaking but we didn't hand around to admire them for too long. Even though we were all novices at ascending ropes we took to it well and climbed quickly, Even the cold beer the marshalls had waiting for us at the top didn't distract us for too long. We set off quickly with confusing directions and stories of Russians mad with drink 
accosting teams along the way, to get the nextsection of
bunderbashing completed before 
dark. The African scub is thick and ALL of the vegetation has either prickles or thorns, it's not a place you want to be trying to find your way through with a head torch if it can be avoided.Along the way we again teamed up with the same South African team, Extreme Outdoors, as we had the night before. This time it was their turn to aid us with local knowledge and help us find a road through thick scrub. We found out later that the female in their team lived locally and actually trained on some of these tracks. So we marched along with them up the final hill and as thanks, left them as we moved ahead towards the next hunting lodge. The hospitality was, as we were beginning to expect first rate. All the rooms at the lodge we full, so mattresses were laid out in the dining room for the adventure racers and all types of food and drink were laid on. One of the race doctors was summoned to attend to Del and Grant's feet, before we again snuggled up under blankets supplied by the lodge and overslept our alarms.
Day 3
Day three started after what was for all practical purposes a waste of time at TA. We tried to sleep, but the cold noisy conditions made that impossible. The only other justification for staying at the TA was so that we didn't arrive at the paddle section before the sun had time to warm things up a bit. The overnight temp was -5 deg C, and none of us wanted to brave the water in those temperatures. We only set up our bikes after rubbing the ice out of our frozen jerseys (authors note: 'If you ever have to put on a frozen jersey only do so AFTER putting on your thermals). We set off into the clear pre-dawn 
morning with chattering teeth and fozen camel backs. One of the couple of checkpoints that morning was a quote from black activist Steve Biko: 'It is better to die for an idea that lives, rather than live for an idea that is dead'. On this particualr morning when I had woken up stiff, sore and doubting my ability to keep up with the others, I hopoed it was in no way relevant.
Again we just missed out on a luxurious bedroom. Rivals Pepto Pro, who initially were going to keep going decided to stay and forced us to again sleep in the lounge room. This time though we put all the cushions we could find on the floor, put on all our clothes and crawled into our bivy bags. Making full use of 'The Puppy Principle' we spooned hard enough that we had the first warm and uninteruppted sleep of the race. So much so that none of heard our alarms and we overslept by an hour. A fact none of us regretted at the time.
morning with chattering teeth and fozen camel backs. One of the couple of checkpoints that morning was a quote from black activist Steve Biko: 'It is better to die for an idea that lives, rather than live for an idea that is dead'. On this particualr morning when I had woken up stiff, sore and doubting my ability to keep up with the others, I hopoed it was in no way relevant. We gained the dam 2 hours later than we had aimed to and manged to scoff the worlds worst (but in some wierd way desirable)hamburgers and filthiest coffee, before heading out to collect two CPS. This was to be a 40km sufferfest in tub-like sit on tops, but one CP had been cancelled so the paddle was only going to be about 20kms. Lukie was pretty pleased about this, but he was still only half as pissed as he would have been at having to paddle 40kms, which made him still pretty grumpy. Made worse when he realised the tiny wind chop exploded on the bow of the boat and drenched him and left me dry as a bone in the back of the boat. To warm up Luke and Grant headed off for the CP while Del and I minded the gear (caught up on some sleep and did some stretching). Thius proved a turning point for me. Prior to the break, unable to barely raise a trot, I was questioning my ability to finish the race, 40 minutes later I was feeling like a new man, and even jogged the 50m or so to get the next check point. Such are the vagaries of adventure racing.
Off the boats it was back on the bikes and a long MTB to another hunting lodge TA. There were
several memorable moments the first of which was Grant's frightening one handed descent down a killer fire road, steep and rocky, I'm sure there were people that would have baulked at tackling it two handed, but Grant kept up while taking a video of the rest of us plunging down to the Kabusi River. The other memorable moment was the look of despair as we realised we had to carry our bikes up the ciffs on the other side of the river. The property owner declared: This is where 'The Bull' grows balls." He obviously wasn't aware of what we had already been through., This Bull had always had the full package. The course then returned to the river via the Kabusi Safari Lodge, we were warned as we departed that the buffalo were last seen down by the river, where we were heading. Luckily we didn't have to avoid these notoriously dangerous beasts. It is a well known fact in South Africa, that buffaloes kill more people each year than any of the carnivores. Difficult nav through the river saw us team up with another South African team, Outdoor Extreme, although Luke ended up leading us all out before we powered ahead to arrive at the next hunting lodge.
several memorable moments the first of which was Grant's frightening one handed descent down a killer fire road, steep and rocky, I'm sure there were people that would have baulked at tackling it two handed, but Grant kept up while taking a video of the rest of us plunging down to the Kabusi River. The other memorable moment was the look of despair as we realised we had to carry our bikes up the ciffs on the other side of the river. The property owner declared: This is where 'The Bull' grows balls." He obviously wasn't aware of what we had already been through., This Bull had always had the full package. The course then returned to the river via the Kabusi Safari Lodge, we were warned as we departed that the buffalo were last seen down by the river, where we were heading. Luckily we didn't have to avoid these notoriously dangerous beasts. It is a well known fact in South Africa, that buffaloes kill more people each year than any of the carnivores. Difficult nav through the river saw us team up with another South African team, Outdoor Extreme, although Luke ended up leading us all out before we powered ahead to arrive at the next hunting lodge.
Again we just missed out on a luxurious bedroom. Rivals Pepto Pro, who initially were going to keep going decided to stay and forced us to again sleep in the lounge room. This time though we put all the cushions we could find on the floor, put on all our clothes and crawled into our bivy bags. Making full use of 'The Puppy Principle' we spooned hard enough that we had the first warm and uninteruppted sleep of the race. So much so that none of heard our alarms and we overslept by an hour. A fact none of us regretted at the time.Thursday, August 28, 2008
Day 2
After a very cold night in the Mnyemi hut the day dawned clear and fine. We raced a couple of other teams out of the hut and headed off up the valley. The waslk out was nothing short of spectacular. We wold follow the river up until it hit a large 30 m waterfall at which point you would have to zig zag up out of the gully before heading back to the river to repeat the process. After doing this several times we eventually broke out onto the Amatole high plains.
Going around Mt Thomas we experienced our first South African burn off. Regardless of weather conditions the scrib and grasslands are burnt to promote fresh growth. Tramping around the mountain our progress was sped up by the crackling of a scrub fire and the sight of flames up to six foot high only a couple of hundred meters from where we were.
Kubusi was finally climbed right on sunset and it turned out to be the highlight of the trek
. We took a snapshot of the CP and headed off on the long slog to the TA. By this stage we were all over the trek and just wasnted to get the weight off our feet. Yet that was still hours away, and the walk down the fenceline was done on autopilot.
. We took a snapshot of the CP and headed off on the long slog to the TA. By this stage we were all over the trek and just wasnted to get the weight off our feet. Yet that was still hours away, and the walk down the fenceline was done on autopilot. We finally got into the TA tired and hungry with news that dorm beds awaited us. Alas, they were all taken and another couple of hours of shivering together on a couch while other teams came and went and interupted any thought of productive sleep awaited us.
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