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The One.Tel Hebridean Challenge – Day 2 – South Uist

Jon Brooke / 07.07.2004

Half way through the day most of the teams were on Beinn Mhor, the biggest hill in South Uist at 620 metres. Most of them had already run over a couple of other 350 meter hills though a couple of teams, One.Tel and the Hitchhikers, had decided to drop those sections and take penalties in order to make a cut-off time for the start of a long paddling section later on.

What it also meant though was that they had extra people available to put up Beinn Mhor to gain points. One of the important factors in the Heb is points collection, with teams needing to make a total of 150 by the end of the week or suffer a three minute penalty for each point short.

Other teams had gained points on a parallel MTB section up the west coast Machair, on sandy sections that Paul Currant of 2x2 described as “brilliant� though he was using a road bike and riding it like a cyclo-cross section. Even earlier in the day the paddlers had crossed the sound of Barra to kick start the land based section.

After Beinn Mhor came another short bike to the day’s swim. All Over the Place were first there though it was difficult to say who was leading the race over the ground because the opening kayak leg had had a staggered start based on the first day’s paddling times. Their swimmer Caroline Wallace was second again on the swim leg to The Hitchhiker’s Ade Pottinger who looks to be shaping up to win the overall swim prize.

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