Wildside Adventure Race

High Points And Low Points On a Wild Course

Richard Old (Wildside Adventure Race) / 08.10.2014

The second day of WildsideAR saw teams already well spread across the course from the Manning paddle leg to the Falls Trek. The front of the field continued to battle it out with Tiger Adventure taking the lead over Team Mountain Designs who grabbed some sleep and refueled at the end of the paddle leg.

Hot on the heels of Tiger were the ACT based Stromlonauts and the IB Bandits.  The Chick & 3 token blokes who lost a racer from a bike accident on Day 1 pushed on unranked.

This was the start of the remote legs of the race. Teams climbed into the Coorabakh National Park towards Big Nellie – an ancient exposed volcanic plug 457m above sea level. From Big Nellie the climbing continued into the township of Comboyne. Total elevation gain for this leg 1853m.

Pairs teams were led by 2FinishAdventureRacing who despite suffering an injury were powering ahead.

From Comboyne the Falls trek was a 22km journey across farmland to the Ellenborough River Gorge. Here a 5km bouldering section greeted teams. Movement was slow going, especially as the sun went down.  Ellenborough Falls are the highest single drop falls in the southern hemisphere. The lead teams finished this leg early evening. At this point Team Mountain Designs were back with the front pack – clearly their break had worked.

The leaders chose to grab some sleep at the Falls TA before tackling the 100km mtb to Barrington leaving around midnight on their journey south. The back markers rested at Comboyne electing to take on the Falls trek leg in daylight.

The first readjustment was applied at the Falls TA. Due to logging across part of the mtb leg teams not riding by midnight were now shuttled down to a safer start area. Some will see this as a chance to rest while to others it is an convenience.

From the highs of Big Nellie to the lows of the river gorge racers were getting a taste of the wild parts of the North Coast.

Day 3 will get teams to the halfway point of the course – Barrington. From here the journey to the finish starts and the with it the clock watching – beating the cut off.

You can follow the race live at http://www.wildsideadventurerace.com.au/info/live-race-tracking

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