Adventure Racing World Championship 2016
Seagate Stop off at the Pub
Rob Howard / 11.11.2016
Seagate were the first team to finish the stage 8 trek in the Budawang mountains and arrive at the Nerriga Bar, which has TA7 set up beside it in a small adjoining field.
Having descended off the high ridges they walked and ran into transition along a series of forest roads for the final 8km, which wasn’t easy on tired feet. Even so they were moving well, close together and running steadily for much of the time.
I had a quick chat to them as they approached the TA and they were all in good spirits and chatting. “You should have found us up in the mountains,” Nathan Fa’avae said, “the scenery was spectacular up there. It was still a bit misty and cloudy when we were in the main area of cliffs but even so it was great country. I wish we’d known about the big overhangs and caves, we’d have slept there instead of transition as it would have been a cool place to be.”
Chris Forne said, “I can’t really compare it to anything else I’ve seen. It was a big area of massive escarpments and boulder terrain. It was definitely one of the highlights so far.” When I asked about the maps and navigation he added, “It’s been pretty straight forward really, with no major route choice, but some will go wrong with unmarked tracks I expect. I disagree with Craig (Bycroft) about that. I think the maps should be updated for races where they know the tracks are wrong, but he leaves us to it. I guess it does keep it interesting for me as I have to concentrate on the contours.”
The team pushed straight through transition and when Jo Williams pulled out her food bag she looked at the notes taped on the side and said, “We’re a bit behind schedule – earliest we hoped to be here was 1.30 so we are an hour behind.” She said this with a smile and seemed very relaxed and talkative in the Seagate team with the 3 male multiple world champions.
The team will now ride on the roads to the next transition, and said their bikes were all fine, then comes the caving section and this is followed by the pack raft stage. It looks like they will get caught in the dark zone here, so will have a choice to stop and sleep (with the other teams catching them), or push on and trek along the side of the river canyon carrying the rafts. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
SleepMonsters
