One-Tel Hebridean Challenge
The One.Tel Hebridean Challenge – day 3 – To Harris
Jon Brooke / 08.07.2004
The teams started early with a bike ride From Cairinish Hall to Lochmaddy, just jumping off on the way to bag a checkpoint inside a chambered cairn near the road. When they arrived they tagged their swimmer who went around a headland, relying on their communication with the supporting kayaker to guide them round the corner. Friends of Ghengis who would be first to admit that they are on a steep learning curve and have made a couple of time consuming mistakes were just plain unlucky on the bike this time when a crank came off, meaning that they started the swim a little down on the others.After the swim the kayakers were away on a slightly complicated section picking up checkpoints on islands and around the shore in the bay at Lochmaddy with the catch being that they had to synchronise with land based team members at the shore-based checkpoints and also to get back in a strict 90 minute window or face stiff penalties. Even more important though was the fact that teams arriving late would face the prospect of missing the Sound of Harris ferry which was waiting at the end of another road bike. In the event all the teams made it back in time, with 2x2 and Pyro and the Vets clearing the section and everyone else showing a little caution and dropping one checkpoint for a 5 minute penalty.
After the team vehicles came ashore at Leverburgh they waited for their paddlers to appear before setting off on a run/bike up the Golden Road to the East of Harris that demanded some competent navigation, with checkpoints on small hills in an area of lots of small hills and lochans. Another small 8 km hill run with a 480 meter ascent followed, dropping into Tarbert for a bike to, and a run around, Scalpay Island, where the hall generally provides one of the most eagerly anticipated evening meals of the race, the legendary fish pie (along with a couple of other delicious options). In the meantime though, mountain bikers were burning up (or staggering up) the trails of Harris on a section that took between 1:59 and 4:24 to complete (Kenny Riddle of Wild Outdoors and 2 members of Friends of Ghengis respectively).
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