Southern Traverse
Final Mountain Stage Make or Break Leg of the Race
Susan McKenzie / 17.11.2004
“If the water had been like this yesterday, we would have let them paddle,� says Geoff Hunt. “It was really high and fast yesterday.�
But yesterday was yesterday, and today the teams are making only a skip over the river, toting their bikes across in rafts.
GoLite/Timberland quickly hops out of the raft and begins to push their bikes along a rocky strip of beach that will lead them to the road to TA6. As they cycle through cow and sheep paddock in this largely agricultural area, they must open and close a series of cow gates. Bewildered cows scatter as the cyclists in bright red race bibs pedal past, and Isaac Wilson is careful to pull all the gates closed behind them as they go.
A while later, the team arrives at TA6, one of Geoff Hunt’s race “gems.� The Gloria Vale Christian Community has allowed the race to set up shop here, in the middle of its dairy pasture. Support crews will slowly trickle in and out of here over the next day or so. Teams that arrive here before 8:30am Thursday will leave the TA on foot to begin a tough 34 kilometre trek into some a region that hardly ever sees humans. CP24 has only seen sixty visitors in ten years – and fifty eight of them were helicoptered in. Those that arrive after 8:30 will be moved onto a shortened course and cycle directly to Haupiri Lake.
“The trek around Lake Morgan and the Alexander Range is a very steep section so I expect to see lots of sore knees at the end,� Geoff Hunt said prior to the race. “This is a real testing stage, really challenging especially at night. I expect that the teams who complete will remember it, and for lots of different reasons.�
Meanwhile, the dairy field has been transformed into a mobile village, full of cars and trailers and vans and plenty of tarpaulins. A Hokitika café, the Café de Paris, has set up temporary shop here, selling espresso and cappuccino and killer triple-chocolate muffins.
SleepMonsters
