Expedition Africa

Drakensberg 1 – Navigators 0

Rob Howard / 10.05.2013

There are a few things you do not expect to hear on finish line interviews, like Bob Miller saying, “I did a complete 180 and took us back in the wrong direction” and Nicholas Mulder saying with a perplexed look on his face, “For the first time in my life I had no idea where we were, and could not relocate.”  To put that into perspective it’s like Usain Bolt saying, “I tripped over my own feet” or Roger Federer being unable to hit a tennis ball.

The 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th teams all finished close together in the early afternoon, all world class teams with top navigators, and all had been totally lost overnight. Tecnu Adventure were the first to arrive, securing their second place.  They ran up to the finish line on the hotel steps at a good pace, pushing right to the finish and enjoyed their finish line photos, but it was only after a couple of minutes that Kyle Peter’s mother, who is here supporting the team, told him the team was second. The mood became one of amazed elation and the champagne was sprayed all around as the team hugged and cried.

Like all the teams finishing so far they had thought they’d lost several places as the struggled to make it off the cliffs of the lower Drakensberg through an awful night of wet weather and bad visibility. “We thought we were 5^th or 6^th” said Peter.  Miller, who is described by his team as ‘the Canadian nav God’ said, “We were completely lost, and I did a complete 180, only realising after 15 minutes.  Then we got even more confused and completely lost our route.”

Karen Lundgren added, “The important thing was we kept it together and kept racing to the finish line.  When Bob made a mistake we didn’t blame him, we just got on with it.”  To which Peter replied, “Well I might have been a bit annoyed when I asked him if he knew which was North!”

While Tecnu were still on the finish line Cyanosis appeared around the corner of the hotel, coming from the other direction to the first two teams, and running up the path to the finish line. Like the others they were surprised to have finished as highly placed as they did, but as Nicholas Mulder said, “Its rule no. 1 of Adventure Racing; If you are having a bad night the chances are everyone else is too.” Nic is a renowned navigator and a former World Rogaining Champion and when he said he was lost and could not relocate he looked very troubled, as though such as thing shouldn’t be possible!

Sadly for the South African supporters Cyanosis did not hold on to that 3^rd position as Raidlight finished within 35 minutes of them, giving them the final podium place due to their time credit.  Not that anyone would be begrudge Raidlight their result as they’ve had an impressive and hard fought race.  Their navigator and captain Sebastian Raichon was more succinct in his summary of the night and its challenges, simply saying, “It was the night of the apocalypse.”

For two racers who finished this morning in particular it was an impressive result personally.  Garrett Bean of Tecnu and Susan Carter-Brown of Cyanosis were both in their first expedition length races.  With the support of very experienced teams each finished a very tough world class race in highly ranked positions – an amazing achievement.

The finish is also a credit to Race Director Stephan Muller for a very clever piece of course planning as he clearly planned a difficult navigational stage to end the race with, and even hinted at this in the race briefing when he advised teams to hold onto their hiking map from stage one, “as you may need it later.”  (I wonder how many of them did?)  Given the bad weather it was probably a bit more difficult than he anticipated, but it certainly made for a dramatic finish!