2007 Adventure Marlborough
R & R Sport Pirates win Adventure Marlborough
Stan van Jaarsveld / 24.11.2007
Starting at 2000 hours Friday 16th November, with a two hour paddle from Ohingaroa Bay in the Mahau Sound. This was interrupted with a short trek/portage before kayaking under the cloak of darkness into the base of the Mahakipawa Arm.
Almost all the teams experienced small fish leaping and crashing into their chests and arms as they were startled by the kayaks. Team 1 (Moa Hunters) even managed to land one of these fish, weighing in a 44g mullet at TA1. The first 3 teams were close together into this transition, R & R Pirates, 6 Foot & Under, and local favourites Villa Maria.
Teams then had a short but steep mountain bike section before they carried onto the start of the trek at Long Valley Road. Most teams choose to take the short but extremely steep descent into Havelock with only one team managing to ride the whole thing. Numerous placings changed after the short mountain bike due to the number of options that teams could take. Bad luck had befallen Team Yarra, Team 9 whose female competitor had sprained her ankle in the first section of the race. They were forced to take a rest over night, driving to Onamalutu hoping to rejoin the race in the morning.
Competitors now knew that checkpoint 10 was the Altitude Abseil. With only two fixed ropes they all knew that the race was on to get to one of the two ropes before other teams. However, the trek to the abseil was not going to be easy. Teams soon found out how steep Marlborough terrain can be and some resorted to climbing on hands and knees over rocks and grass. R & R Sport Pirates and 6 Foot & Under made it to the abseil first, forcing Villa Maria to sit, wait and watch for their turn. This abseil certainly took a number of competitors by surprise due to its height and a large free-hanging section at the base of it, causing some competitors to use numerous expletives on the way down. Teams pushed through the night into a spectacular sunrise that they viewed from the summits of Mt Riley and Sunday. After the 20 minute lead from the abseil R & R, and 6 Foot & Under stretched this lead to almost 40 minutes from Villa Maria. However it was R & R who came in alone at TA3, Onamalutu due to 6 Foot & Under making a small navigational mistake. R & R capitalised on this, leaving the TA as fast as they could to try and get a decent split from the chasing teams. Other teams came in slowly over the morning, a little weary and sore from the rugged trek but still buzzing about the abseil. SQL Services and FARCARWE were close together, forming the chasing bunch to these 3 teams.
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