Adventure Quest Africa

To the Finish

David Ogden - Team Manager of \'International Adventurers\' / 30.07.2002

A damp an overcast dawn but still no news, then the support crew of ‘World of Endurance’ arrived. Their other vehicle had skidded off the mountain track down a bank and damaged its wheel and the surviving one had a near miss when its trailer jack-knifed. This brought the tally of damaged vehicles to four with one Mazda totalled, another stood on by a Kudu with a third wrecking its gearbox. The “big team� arrived with some news that our team had been seen making a right turn the previous evening, where other teams turned left. Conditions were bad on the mountain and teams had found shelter in lodges.

Our concern was now mounting and the film crew set off to see if they could spot them or team ‘Kinetic’, who had been in third place but were now presumed lost. Eventually, in the late morning the lost sheep returned. They’d had quite an adventure. Being unable to find a checkpoint due to low cloud they opted to stay on the mountain and got into their emergency shelter to survive. This worked fine until the girls began to fall asleep and the temperatures dropped so they walked on a bit to warm up before setting up shelter again, briefly meeting ‘Kinetic’. They set up shelter three times and on the third time were getting so cold they got into two sleeping bags (wet) to share what little warmth their bodies generated. In the morning they discovered they were only 600 metres from the PC, who’s weak flashing light they’d been unable to see.

Andy was particularly cold from his experience, showing signs of hypothermia, so he was placed in a dry sleeping bag and warmed with hot water bottles and warm drinks. Kristel and Jody also spent some time warming up in my car. The biggest problem the team had to face for the final trek was the lack of dry clothes, however by swapping clothing around everyone was able to set of dry. Julia cooked mountains of toasted sandwiches, which had been kept fresh in the unnaturally cold conditions. Refreshed, warm and fed, the team set off for the last time following the valley and eventually climbing of a mountain ridge into Mountain Zebra Reserve.

We broke camp for the last time and headed back to the finish where there was a promise of a hot bath, which we took these before the team arrived. At 18.00 we moved our vehicles down to light up the finish line, praying that the team had got over the ridge in daylight in order to find the steps over a big electric fence. At 19.15 the team, which a week earlier had been strangers, arrived as the best of friends.