Land Rover G4 Challenge
Going Underground
27.04.2006
It wasn’t ‘Nam. It was Laos 2006 and the Land Rover G4 Challenge’s most spectacular event so far – a head-to-head kayak race along a seven-kilometre underground stretch of the Nam Hinboun River. Watched by locals from boats fashioned out of old B52 fuel tanks, the competitors paddled furiously into the pitch blackness of Konglor Cave, passing rocks like limestone icebergs, vast overhead caverns and cascades of water.
They navigated rapid narrow stretches, shallows requiring portage and a white subterranean beach, before emerging below a dramatic mountain into an emerald lagoon, where Australia’s Alina McMaster and Brazil’s Eleonora Audra claimed first place.
‘It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done,’ said Eleonora. ‘The two of us are working really well together. We were overtaking and being overtaken by the guys the whole way through. We paddled so hard near the end, and there was a big mess as we crashed into other boats. We didn’t even know we’d won.’
Second place Martin Dreyer, a professional South African kayaker who has competed all over the world, described it as the paddle of a lifetime. ‘It was truly spectacular. I’m glad it was a compulsory competition and not something to do if we could fit it in. It would be a crime to miss it.’
For the second time in two days, the canny South African displayed a blend of experience and tactical astuteness, attaching his kayak to his team mate’s, by a bungee cord. ‘It’s something I’ve learnt over years of racing,’ he said. ‘It lets the person behind stay on the downside of the wave behind your kayak – and that means 15 per cent less effort to keep up.’
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