Southern Traverse
A Day of Changes
Derek Patterson / 11.11.2003
After starting the first trek two hours ahead of Race Director Geoff Hunt’s schedule, teams ran into problems as the sunlight faded – just as Hunt had predicted. Many of the locals thought they knew the area, but as Ron Anderson, SBS, said, “There are always surprises, little bits you don’t know.�
And many of those little bits turned out to be full of gorse and thick brush.
That wasn’t the only problem for leaders Omni Graphics. Jim Cotter managed to lose the map and Rachel Barton, already suffering from a suspected fracture in her left hand, started to feel sick. By the time she reached TA4, at the end of the mountain bike section following the trek, she hadn’t held any food down for more than 15 hours. And the team has slipped to third.
The next section was kayaking, flat water paddling on the meandering Taieri River across the plains of the same name, then through the shallow waters of Lake Waipori, searching for the right channel to paddle on to TA5. Rachel’s kayak was put on tow and she slept most of the way. “I think they’re paying the price of pushing too hard on Day One,� said Hunt. “They probably didn’t realise it, but the pace was probably a bit too hard for Rachel.�
Meanwhile, Cycle Surgery Scott Bikes, three Aussies and a Kiwi, was going from strength to strength. They made good time on the trek, put their heads down for an hour in the TA at the end, and took off feeling refreshed. Before the bike section finished, they had taken the lead from Icebreaker Bridgedale who were beginning to show the strain of lack of sleep. They took 20 minutes to sleep at TA3 but as orienteering champion Phil Wood said, “You need to sleep at night, to use all the daylight you can. At night you’re only moving at half or two thirds pace so you lose less time sleeping.�
Team Kathmandu was making erratic progress. “We had serious problems in the navigation on the trek,� admitted team captain – and navigator – Duncan Hamilton. Eventually one of his team mates took on the job and during the following bike leg, they began to make up time again.
Aberdeen Asset Management have been having a good race and enjoying themselves immensely. “We lost a few places sleeping but we’re making them up again now. We’ve been spot on with the navigation.�
Green Decoys, a team of 40-somethings, has been showing the youngsters a few tricks, too. Despite “a couple of glitches� in the trek navigation, one of which resulted in 2km of bashing through dense brush, they’ve managed to keep going and left TA4 on the start of the second mountain bike leg in third place. Omni Graphics were still asleep.
All these front teams are keen to finish the bike leg, get a bit of sleep and head out on the 70km orienteering trek through the rolling tussock lands of the Lammerlaw Range – “the crux of this year’s race.� And the forecast is not quite as bad as it was with the bad weather perhaps not arriving until late tomorrow, just in time for the slower teams – or maybe not all.
Speaking of slower teams, everyone is now off the trek. The two teams at the tail end – R & R Thunderbirds and Auto Point New Caledonia – are travelling happily, big grins on their faces. Two other teams have withdrawn with nasty but not serious stomach problems and a third team is continuing unranked.
Derek Paterson has been involved with adventure racing from the sport's infancy. He is also the author and publisher of the world's first book on the sport, 'Adventure Racing, Guide to Survival'. Derek has covered adventure racing all over the globe and now returns to his roots, Dunedin, the town he grew up in, for the 2003 Southern Traverse.
SleepMonsters
