Adventure Quest Africa (2)

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Leg 5: 26km Hike and Monster Swim

Cindy Van Zyl / 02.09.2002

T4 – PC5: Kommando Drift Dam – Hiking Hut
We could see headlamps bobbing all around the edges of the dam and quickly calculated that at least 60% of the entire field was in various stages of Leg 5. Our blood stirred! In anticipation of the chase Riaan and Brian chanted Jabberwock’s new anthem, its blood curdling chorus echoing across the dam: The wild dog is not deterred by clever twists and turns, but goes in merciless pursuit! Whooooop, Whooooop!

Kobus set a stiff 7km/h pace and deployed his famous tiger-line navigation tactics. We crossed the dam wall and cut a direct line to the hiking-hut. The direct route compelled us to bash 100 - 300m long tunnels through dense reed belts that led to black, eerie riverbeds. Big heavy-winged birds flapped out of the gnarly trees.

In an attempt to cross one of the riverbeds Riaan got stuck in the black marsh. The mud sucked him in deeper and appeared to have an appetite for devouring any unsuspecting man or beast. The only way to cross these carnivorous marshes was to bridge bent trees that stretched far enough across the expanse of mud. These crossings produced some of the most delicate and fine balancing acts ever witnessed. Riaan, our red-hot climber may just have a real future as a ballerina!

Close to the hiking hut we ran into team Hydro Gear who reported that teams who followed the dam in a clockwise direction were getting stuck (we assumed in similar reed belts and muddy river beds as we encountered). A little distance further a mischievous team Swazi Slow Jo’s ambushed us. We clipped in 14th position at PC5, which meant that we made up four places in the past nine hours. We were delighted. Whoooooop! Whoooooop! Merciless pursuit!

PC5 – PC6: Hiking Hut – Monster Swim
To avoid the difficulty other teams were obviously facing, we headed to PC6 along the same route we came. It was when we ran into yet another team on the way back that Brian made the droll remark that Jabberwock should be sponsored by Vaseline: “We always seem to come at the teams from behind…� It was good to see team Rocky in the field. They suffered the same time loss at the hand of the dark zone and were working hard to make up positions.

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