XPD Australia
Wheeling and dealing at XPD...
Fiona McBryde (Orion Adventure Blog) / 21.05.2010
Teams have reached the mid camp at XPD - a compulsory 6 hour stop, where each team gets a hot meal, a place to sleep and the chance to have a hot shower... if they can keep their eyes open long enough!First to arrive off the mountain bike/orienteering leg was Blackheart.au at 06.55. After refusing treatment for their stinging tree wounds at the Ravenshoe TA, on arrival at mid camp they headed straight for the medics. Kim's comment on the team blog was that the boys "screamed like little girls".
Orion arrived in TA at 09.02, a smidgen over two hours later. Carl comments in the team race blog: "Not much sleep had at mid camp - was a bit hot for comfort. Made a bad nav error on the bike, but good orienteering and different last route choice seems to have paid off. Blackheart now has a bit of a lead, but there is a whole lot of racing to go. Most of this kayak will be at night which might be niggly but we’re up for it!"
Teams are now off on what must be a first for adventure racing worldwide - a 20km wheelbarrow stage! Blackheart departed at 12.55 precisely the requisite 6 hours after they arrived. Orion were also off on the dot of 6 hours at 15.02. They had their wheelbarrow loaded up with all the gear and packs. Looked mighty heavy!
Annie commented that "Orion looked a bit down when they arrived here at midc amp after the various issues (stinging and nav) last night, but after sleep and food they had all re-focused and were in good spirits heading off."
Stu's prediction is that they will smash the wheelbarrow leg, with Marcel the packhorse piling all the gear and maybe one or two of the team in the barrow and taking off at full clip - hopefully he waits for the rest of the team to catch up!
This seems to be bourne out by both the photo below showing Marcel pushing a very fully-laden barrow! And the tracker info, which shows Orion reeling in the gap to Blackheart down to 1.5 hours by the end of this short leg. Watch out Aussies!
Next up is a long 70km kayak down the Walsh river, described in the race notes as "a small, shallow, river that connects several watering holes together. This could be a hot endeavour for the racers." As the top teams will be doing this overnight (and looking at the photo of the 'river' below we suspect it will definitely take all night, if not longer!) the heat shouldn't be a problem, but it may be very hard to pick out the deep (or less shallow...) water by head torch. This leg will be a real challenge to team spirit, as hauling those kayaks through muddy shallows can be heartbreaking work. I expect there will be a lot of terrible singing going on!See All Event Posts
