Cross Channel Raiders

Peter Brett / 25.09.2002

Nine English people lined up with nearly fifty formidable French teams in the latest \'Raid Normand\' adventure race. The event billed as a \'Cross Channel Challenge\' took place in both France (Haute Normandie) and England (East Sussex) in some of the best countryside in these areas.

It is the eighth year an adventure race has been organised under the Raid Normand banner and the organisation was pretty slick leaving the competitors just to face the rigours of over 150km of racing, off road running, biking and canoeing with orienteering, abseiling, swimming, river crossings and archery thrown in.

The event started in France around Arques La Bataille just south of Dieppe with 2 people from each of the fifty or so four person teams completing a 350m open water swim. This helped separate the teams through transition to the next phase, mountain bike orienteering. The course was set over 35km and took advantage of the best of the French countryside (and hills). We picked up checkpoints along the route, some hidden carefully. Unlike British races the instructions to find each point were given in the form of a bearing and distance to it in metres on the ground. Careful work was required to get this right on the map (translated thanks to the organiser) or you risked some interesting \'bush bashing\' on the ground. We became intimately acquainted with French thickets on a couple of occasions, managed several punctures and best of all trashed a chain set on one bike.

Needless to say we limped home a little late, missed the cut off for the canoe stage and collected a three hour penalty, a little annoying as we\'re all kayakers. The river section looked good too with a reasonably current and a couple of small weirs and drops for added interest. All we could do was cycle to the next part a 10km run/walk with more navigation. It was pretty much dark by the time we started this and thanks to some direct navigation and a large French guard dog we became acquainted with more French thickets.

Back at the finish at around 2230hrs there was one more challenge to complete a little archery, with points scored taking minutes off the teams time ( we managed 11 minutes) before travel to Dieppe and the 0045hr high speed ferry (specially chartered by the organiser) back to Newhaven. A thoroughly rewarding first day. The organisers did a good job here with trailers laid on for the bikes and lifts for those without vehicles. The French even managing to rustle up some extra food for the starving Brits. Some of the French Teams really knew how to live with friends setting up large charcoal BBQ\'s.

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