Caves, Cuts and Crossings

Rob Howard / 19.08.2016

In the morning of day 3 of ITERA the leading teams arrived at Aillwee Cave in The Burren, and the race has now spread out down a considerable distance of the west Coast either side of Galway.  

The high winds (with much worse forecast to come) have continued to disrupt the race with the latest change being the cancellation of the ‘Itera Ferry’ across the Shannon Estuary – which has meant re-planning the cycling route to take teams to the regular car ferry crossing further East.  This is off of their race maps so teams are being briefing on the changes and given a new map at TA3 at Kinvara. They are also being given the ferry times, and as it does not run after 9pm told that the clock will be stopped if they miss it.  (Should that happen they’ll be timed out until the 7am ferry next morning.) Navigators are having to concentrate hard and their maps are covered in crossings out and new routes!

At least the caving section couldn’t affected by the very unseasonal weather (it’s more like Autumn than summer).  The Aillwee Cave is a popular tourist show cave in the limestone Karst region of The Burren, and after a stiff ride uphill the teams were directed to push their bikes into the tunnels of the show cave, then climb over a barrier into a closed section to find two checkpoints.

The first was above a narrow downward crawl, and the second beyond some sections where the tunnels were flooded, but only to thigh deep. It was a fairly quick in and out, taking care on the slippery climbs and descents, clambering through boulders and then picking up the bikes once again to ride out of the caves along another long, straight, section of tunnel.

FMR were first through around 6am and are now building a good lead as they continue southwards on the new route. Issy Aventure followed them later on and quickly came running back out to get their instructions once again as they were not sure about leaving the show cave and climbing over the barrier.

Further back on the course the wind is making the paddling harder for the teams still on Lough Corrib and they report being blown into rocky shallows and reed beds. Some are stopping on the shore line to rest and most are struggling to find the river entrance into Galway, especially those who arrive in the dark.

[Looking ahead the weather is forecast to get worse - force 10 winds are expected in Kerry, so there will have to be more changes and re-routings with the paddle across the Inch Strand and the cycling circuit of the Dingle Peninsula taken out of the course.]

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