Rollo's Nelson Adventure Race
Rollo’s Nelson Adventure Race won by one minute
Stan van Jaarsveld / 04.06.2007
The 15 hours before the start of the race, it has been raining straight and the weather forecast doesn’t predict anything better for the next couple of days. From all over New Zealand 25 teams gathered in Nelson for a 12/24hour race. Six of them will run the twelve hour course, the remaining teams gear up for a 24 hour battle. Starting at three in the morning at a little peninsula at Cable Bay just outside Nelson, teams will run down the Cable Bay Walkway. It is here where team Norsewear, one of the top teams, miss checkpoint 2 and receive a 2 hour time penalty. This will be hard to make up for in a 24hour race.
The following bike leg takes competitors in the dark over Kaka Hill to Branford Park for a serious orienteering section. Here teams were split up in couples, each with their own map and set of checkpoints.
Team Gourock is the first one back and they even find time to pose for the photographer of the local newspaper, before setting of to the Nelson marina.
Teams paddled out to Oyster Island to use their custom made Pirate map to pick up coordinates from two locations on the island. Combined these with one other set of numbers given at the next check point, this will make up the location of the next transition area on Rabbit Island.
Three teams, including team Gourock and team Norsewear, mixed up the coordinates and found themselves on the wrong site of the island. Instead of paddling around they decided to portage their kayaks about 2.5 kilometres across.
Two other teams, Team Forever Young and Team Under Training, hit some rough water and got into trouble and had a swim. The didn’t manage to climb back into their boat but made it to Rabbit Island anyway, with some help of the safety boat.See All Event Posts
