ITERA - Presented by Open Adventure
The Leaders at Portmerion
Rob Howard / 12.08.2014
In the early hours of Tuesday morning the leading teams arrived at one of N. Wales’ most unique locations – the village of Portmerion on the Dwyryd river estuary.
To get there they had completed the first long mountain trek, then paddled down the river, with a portage on the way, and on arrival had an orienteering stage to complete around the village.
adidas TERREX were first to arrive at 4.45am. Their early arrival meant they could get a little sleep after completing the orienteering as no teams were allowed on the water until 8am in the morning. (Second place team, Haglofs Silva didn’t arrive until 06.50 and once they had completed the orienteering there was little time left for resting before the 8am restart.)
As the two top teams prepared to leave Nick Gracie from adidas TERREX said; “It’s a great course, we are really enjoying it.” Kim Collision added, “It was spectacular at times yesterday with bursts of sunshine lighting up the hillsides, but really windy.”
“We struggled with the sketch map of the village in the dark,” he said, “nothing seemed to make any sense and we were running around looking for the dog cemetery in the middle of the night!” Haglofs Silva had daylight for their orienteering but didn’t find it much easier, saying the map made no sense. They stopped at the map boards around the village to get their bearings.
They did at least get to see where they were. The village is an Italiante folly, full of bell towers, arches and gazebos, with blue pools surrounded by palm trees, whitewashed walls painted with frescos, statuary and stucco. It is full of whimsical architectural features, a large golden Buddha, a statue of Nelson, and on the water front a concrete boat built into the quayside! (I tried to convince Swedish cameraman Eric it was a traditional Welsh village but he wasn’t buying it!)
The checkpoints were on a sketch map and the route lead the teams around the village. They were under strict instructions to be quiet in the early morning as the village has a hotel and holiday flats for guests.
The two leading teams restarted together at 08.00, moving into the rapidly rising tide to complete the shortened paddling stage. This was another casualty of the wind. The original plan had been to paddle out of the estuary and along the coast to Barmouth, but conditions are still too rough to paddle at sea. So the stage was shortened with teams crossing to the far side of the estuary where their bikes were waiting, and from there they rode over the hills Barmouth.
As the leaders left to resume paddling third placed Team SWECO arrived at the quayside. They said the portage was “a bit gnarly!”
“It was rough and we kept hitting ditches,” they said. “Everything fell off each time and we lost count how many times we had to put all the kit and boats back on the portage trolley.” The portage wasn’t originally part of the race, but major bridge works on the toll bridge over the river forced the race to put the portage in.
At least SWECO had daylight for the portage – the leaders did it in the dark, which must have been much more difficult. They’d also had low water on the river and kept hitting sand banks in the dark.
As SWECO arrived they paddled in through the sandbanks, but the tide was already starting to rise and in a matter of minutes acres of sand had disappeared under the water. By the time they came back from their tour of Portmerion the tide had risen several feet and was flooding powerfully into the estuary. (It is one of the highest tides of the year.)
This didn’t affect the leading 3 teams too much, but those behind them were now fighting the tide and going nowhere fast! (The whole paddle down the river is tidal.)
Teams have until 4pm today to complete the orienteering at Portmerion and be back on the water, or they will be moved forward on the course and ranked as non-competitive. (This deadline was originally 2pm but has been pushed back.)
You can follow the race live at http://live.itera.co.uk/index.htm
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