The World Adventure Racing Championships (XPD Australia)
Buff Thermocool are out of the Race at CP39
Rob Howard / 06.11.2011
The small town of Waratah has a deep canyon, a famous waterfall and an important industrial heritage. For teams in this world championship race all those are interesting asides; for them town is the setting for CP39 – which is a small plastic orienteering punch attached to the fence above the waterfall. Today Waratah was also the end of the road for the reigning world champions Team Buff Thermocool – in slightly bizarre circumstances.
Two of team Buff, checkpoint Benjamin Midena and Fran Lopez Costoya, arrived at the ‘Scenic View’ cafe by the checkpoint but their team mates Sari Anderson and Arnau Julia were nowhere to be found! The team had stopped at the roadside near town when Anderson became ill with vomiting and diarrhoea. She was wrapped up to keep warm and a passing car stopped and took her and Julia to Waratah, or so it was thought. The other two followed in a land rover which also stopped to help (and to collect the bikes). But when they arrived in town their team mates were nowhere to be found!
Visits to the local cafes, the paramedic and a ring around the small town found no news of them and for a while it was a mystery until a phone message came through they’d been taken to their hotel in Burnie. The team was out, but everyone was safe and accounted for!
Team Mountain Designs, who had stopped to help the Buff team for 10 minutes or more, had passed through Waratah as Midena and Costoya arrived, stopping at the CP where it was positioned behind an information board at the waterfall viewpoint. They were in good spirits, saying 100km done and just 50km to go, and dashed off to a cafe down the road, where they stocked up on food and drink and sat out in the sun.
Most teams passing here in opening hours have visited one of the two cafes, and a bit earlier in the day one of the Technu Extreme team called into the cafe by the CP and spent $70 in a 5 minute food buying frenzy. In brief the conversation was, “I’ll take all your pies, coke and any caffeine drinks you’ve got!� And he did!
I doubt any of the teams read the signpost the CP was behind, but it made interesting reading. The town, which has relics of an industrial past scattered around it, and a series of canals and pools above the waterfall, was the site of a huge tin mining discovery at the end of the 19th century. The waterfall was used to power up to 7 water wheels and the first hydro powered dynamo in Tasmania. Most of the teams will never know that (unless they read this when they get home), but they’ll have enjoyed the views at Waratah, the food in the cafes and the fact that they have punched into CP39.See All Event Posts
