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Saturday Morning at Strahan

Rob Howard / 04.11.2011

Mid camp was buzzing on a sunny Saturday morning with 13 teams in camp at various stages of transition. Everyone was appreciating the chance of a hot meal, which most eat before setting off again on the long coastal trek, and spirits were buoyed by some rest and some great weather. It is another sunny and calm day, just what the teams need to help get them going after some hard and wet days in the early part of the race.

In their blogs teams have been saying how good the bike ride yesterday was, muddy with fantastic scenery and Hardtale recounted coming down the road in Strahan at ‘40km with microsleeps’! The main issues teams seem to be having are sore feet from being so wet, which will be tough on the next stage, and quite a few have ‘the squirts’. Rob Preston of Blackheart was suffering yesterday and the team made some time consuming nav errors. They are now racing with Merrell Adventure – and in the past these have been two teams with a big rivalry between them.

Swedish team FJS had the hardest day of all yesterday saying there were 3 big problems the team could encounter; sickness, vital gear breaking and major mistakes ... and they had them all in one day! Although they are in the top half of the field Bridgedale Socks NZ, a very experienced team, are already saying they are worried they’ll need the full 10 days.

At the front end of the race Seagate have reached Granville Harbour at the end of the coastal trek, which took longer than expected, so they have decided they can’t beat the dark zone and slept before the longest bike ride of the race. If that is so and the lead teams arrive to the Dark Zone in the night, there will effectively be a restart for the leaders when it is lifted ... it just depends how many of the top teams get there. It’s not good news for Seagate, who still have their 4 hour penalty hanging over them to be served at the final TA (or for Buff Thermocool with their 2 hour penalty).

At the back of the race the Belgian team and Team Old Dog, New Tricks, who appeared to be off route last night, are back on track, while Driftwood, who are bringing up the rear are to be collected on the road crossing on the first trek and driven around to Tullah to resume.

[I’d recommend taking a look at the blog of Swedish photographer Andreas Strand – www.andreasstrand.se – he’s been taking some great photos, especially of Team Silva.]

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