The third round of the Arrow international 24hr Adventure Race series was, as is traditional, the 'Wellington area', and this year Richard Anderson had decided to head up the country a little to base the race out of Palmerston North.
With grade 2 paddling on the cards, there was a lot of confidence that the paddle would take in the Manawatu Gorge, including the white horse rapid, a pretty impressive drop of nearly 10m vertical in about 100-150m horizontal, so a bunch of us had gone up the weekend before the race to paddle this section, and in our case, get our first experience of taking the doubles down river.
Our year of women troubles was continuing, with Wendy now out of action due to a combination of contact lens issues and an accident in Rotorua when watching the world's, with Kirstine racing Wellington with Bikesmith, and a lot of the local women racing with various spec teams, a fortuitous conversation with Paul Moynihan put us in touch with Kyle 'Wally' Herring. Wally was pretty new to Wellington, and looking to get back into multisport after a stint racing triathlons, and she was interested in racing Wellington, but didn't have a team, so she did now!
Heading up on the Friday afternoon, Helen was joined by Nyree Bryce in the all important support crew role, and the boys were the usual trio of Liam, Barry and Shane.
The usual routine was followed throughout the evening, and ended in the usual way, with us back at the Ross Intermediate school surrounded by like minded fools awaiting the revelation of the course. Groundworks had a strong team that had driven all the way up from Queenstown, Mainly tramping had Al Cross, Jerome Sheppard, Paul Chaplow and Jill Westenra racing, so we expected the battle for first to be between those 2 teams, and then we were hoping for a good race against Bikesmith, and some of the spec teams ( there were 7 traverse teams enterred ) for 3rd.
As expected, the course was going to start with a paddle down to, and through the Gorge, followed by an 80K ride mainly on sealed roads over the Pahiatua track to the start of the 28K tramp, which would be followed by an unassisted transition at 'the pines', where we would pick up our bikes and ride the 14 or 15K to the finish at Llandaff, a homestay/ lodge outside Masterton.
The following morning started the usual way, with sleepy bodies stuffing themselves with food before snoozing on the way to the race start, where final preparation was carried out, boats carried down to the start line, and plans changed for all of the later transitions.
Shortly before the gun went off Helen administered my first dose of Lemsip that would hopefully keep me going despite the vicious cold that I had started to shake off about Wednesday, and then we were down at the line, holding the boats ready for the walk across the stones to the put in.
The race start was followed by about 35 double race boats trying to get themselves into a 8 or so metre wide river, and there was a lot of jostling for position as we headed out into the flow, with Barry and I following Wally and Shane, trying to keep up despite the attentions of several other teams.
We soon spread out slightly, but not enough that there weren't problems at most major turns, the worst one being quite early in the paddle, where a large Eddy was catching boats and piling them up against a cliff. We cut across the eddy, but the back of the boat must have been caught on exit, and we headed for the cliff, which I fended off a little late for the front of the boat, which took a big scratch, as did my hand, the rock being rather sharp and tough unlike most of NZ's crumbling substructure!
Still, we came out of this eddy better than Groundworks, who had managed to break a paddle, so were down to 3 blades in one of their boats ... not that this allowed us to pull away from them, blimey they're strong paddlers!
Most of the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful, with the odd bottom scrape and appalling bit of river reading from me, but a generally pleasant paddle with a bunch of friends until we reached the Woodville Reserve, where Groundworks and a few other teams took the opportunity to get out, finishing the paddle with a drive to Ashhurst bridge, and taking a 1 hour penalty.
Carrying on into the gorge, we followed Wally and Shane, soon reaching the compulsory portage around a potentially dangerous corner ( most of the flow was going under a big tree just around the corner ), where Wally and Shane took the opportunity to refuel while I waited for Barry's leg cramps to go away so that we could actually carry the boat across the rocks, and continue with the race. A few more wiffles passed, and we headed over to river right to set ourselves up for white horse, following the others down, we had to be more careful of our line than in the previous week due to lower flows, and seemed to be doing fine when we got a major lean on as the water tried to push us left towards the big rock we were trying to avoid. A big support stroke on the left had us back upright, and drew applause from the safety boaters, and then it was all over, with just a 3 or 4K paddle out to Ashhurst bridge left.
During this last few K we caught up with Mainly Tramping, who were suffering due to some illness, and from using 2 singles and a double rather than a pair of doubles, and we were in between the 2 Bikesmith boats, so we were pleased that a couple of hours into the race we were setting a reasonable pace.
Quite a slow transition saw MT, Bikesmith, and Jo Holden's team out before us, which was quite disappointing, but we got our heads down, formed up and set off in pursuit. Shortly down the road I noticed that Shane's front wheel Quick Release was at an odd angle, so tried to kick it closed, to discover that it was totally loose, so he stopped to do that, and we performed visual checks on the rest of the bikes to make sure everything looked as it should.
As a warm up for the ride we had a 10K dead straight, virtually flat road to follow, that was made interesting only by the nasty side wind that was coming in from our right, and put Wally onto the verge at one point, and by the fact that we could see and chase a couple of teams in front of us, the first being a couple of friends Neil and Sam, and then Jo's team, who we didn't catch until after we'd clipped the first control flag and got onto the Pahiatua Aokautere road, and started the long climb up to nearly 400m.
Working nicely as a team, with half of us on tow, we gained on another team up the climb, and after saying hi to some support crews that were hanging out at the top of the hill, had a short, sharp descent into the Pahiatua valley. Sticking to the main road, we passed a couple of little townships, and then the seal ended, dumping us onto a gravel road.
Somewhere around here we hooked up with Bikesmith AR, and rode along with them, enjoying the option of taking breathers as we alternated the work at the front, slogging our way through the gravel.
The views out over over the Mangahoa river from our cliff top road were pretty spectacular, but didn't make up for the exposure to the wind that they brought with them, especially for Wally, who again suffered from being the lightest, and got blown off onto the verge again, though given the depth of the gravel in places, that could actually have been where the easier riding was!
Shortly before we reached Kopikopiko a 'car' call went up, and some lad with his baseball cap on backwards came flying past in his Legacy, obviously this road gets a bit of rally driving practise - and why not, it was nice and twisty with a good layer of gravel, only about 20K out of Palmy, we hoped that we wouldn't see too many more of them today though!
Arriving at a hard left hander with a single lane bridge on it we found Ian Bowie searching for the 2nd control flag, and obviously having no luck, Kirstine and I were both confident that it was a little further up, and when we reached that bridge, we found Ian's team mate Fanny Lariviere in the creek hunting, also to no avail. Both Bikesmith and ourselves added our eyes to the search, but quickly decided that the flag was missing, and we headed off, I was thinking there may be another bridge a bit further up, but it soon became obvious there wan't, and I turned back to have a conflab with Kirstine. Bikesmith were by now following us, having found nothing, so I hooked up with them and we caught up with Capital Stamina, and resumed the ride as an 8.
As we battled the headwind on Pukehoi road, everyone was very pleased to be thinking that we would soon be doing a 180 onto a tar sealed road, which should give us a nice tail wind, and there was a definite lightening of the mood as we reached Hukanui, and a civilised road surface ;-)
The tail wind only lasted for about 5K, but it gave everyone a bit of a boost, before turning off once more onto gravel, picking up the 3rd CF, which was actually there this time, and riding down the Mangaraupiu road. Turning left again, we were quickly back onto seal, and it was about here that Kirstine's map holder decided to self destruct, causing Bikesmith to stop and sort themselves out.
We slowed down to see if they were going to catch up, but after a minute or two they were looking disorganised and spread out, so we formed up into a bunch and got our heads down, soon catching up to Fanny and Ian, we worked quite nicely as a rotating team, until Fanny told Ian to stop working with us, a great move in an individual race, but pretty pathetic when we weren't even racing against them - ho hum!
The last 9 K or so was back onto gravel, and mid way through this my rear started to feel squishy, so I stopped and filled it up with CO2, and was back on my way pretty quickly, catching back up with the team before dropping down into the transition, where the FART was the first vehicle on the road.
Checking in, Richard informed me that we were 3rd team in - only Groundworks Queenstown, and a relay team in front of us ... where were Mainly Tramping?
Nyree and Helen had laid out our gear and covered it with a tarpaulin against the threatening rain clouds, so they whisked the tarp off, and we hit the chairs, at which point I got Helen to go way above and beyond, and massage some Arnica into my calves and thighs to ward off the effects of all the Anaerobic riding I had just been doing.
Having changed into our tramping gear, and had my legs revitalised ( thanks again Helen, we really couldn't do it without you ), we grabbed packs and started walking along the road as I took a bearing that showed we were heading in the wrong direction, so we turned and walked back past our crew, and Mainly Tramping, who had arrived and were in their transition right by the start of the track.
About 100 yards further on I realised I had left my watch on the bike, so ran back to get that, and then once we had reformed, Wally upped the pace and we jogged along a relatively flat track for a couple of K, before crossing a bridge and heading up onto our first ridge. This was a short, sharp climb of nearly 400m, and it immediately took it's toll on Wally, but you wouldn't have known this was her first race with us, as the teamwork kicked in immediately, with Barry lightening her load, and she gladly accepted a tow, keeping our progress good towards the top.
We were caught on this climb by Fanny and Ian, and though Ian seemed happy to chat, they moved past and headed off up, setting a better pace as smaller teams tend to do.
Getting onto the ridge we turned left and started the descent down to roaring stag lodge, jogging a lot of it, and checking in mere seconds before Bikesmith AR, who arrived and talked to some people at the hut while we got into our jackets as the weather was closing in and we were about to head out of the bush.
Leaving Bikesmith trying to glean information, we headed into the bush on river left, following a vague track that soon petered out, and we dropped down into the stream itself. Here Barry led the way with Shane and Wally trying to keep up with his long strides, and me bringing up the rear, constantly on the look out for teams behind us, but seeing none, which was very surprising given that Bikesmith knew where we were, and Mainly Tramping should be on a mission.
Almost exactly halfway through the river section we came to some big scars on either side of the river, so as that had taken us 29 minutes, we should be at the junction with cleft creek in another 29, where we were expecting our river to take a hard left, and a sizeable stream to come in hard right.
Continually looking over our shoulders expecting to see BikeSmith closing down on us, we continued down the river, criss crossing in Barry's wake, and obviously making good progress as after about another 27 minutes we came across Fanny and Ian along with another team of 3 disappearing into the bush on river right.
I was expecting us to have to carry on a little further before hitting the track, though when Wally spotted a big Orange arrow we headed into the bush and started following a track downstream. At this point I did a compass check that told me we were heading at 90 degrees to the course I thought we were on - we had passed Cleft Creek, damn it!
Turning round we tried to follow the track, but lost it almost immediately and so dropped back into river, a vantage point from which it was obvious that we'd just walked past Cleft Creek, so we headed back towards it. We knew where Ian and Co had gone into the bush, and could assume they knew where the track was, but as we'd already managed to lose that same track within a few yards, decided we'd head up the Creek itself.
The steep sides caused us some concern, as it was quite possible that we could get bluffed out, but we decided to give it a crack, and headed up the creek sticking to the sides, and doing a lot of clambering over and around rocks and trees that had been washed down in recent floods.
The naming of this creek as a Cleft hacked into the rock was very apt, and the walls rose pretty much vertically about 10 metres on either side of us, though as we'd decided to take the creek, and as there was realistically no way up the sides, we had little choice but to carry on walking against the stream flow.
It was around an hour until we were expecting darkness to fall, and we were trying to push our progress as much as possible, to make the best use of the remains of the light that was available to us, and specifically to try and get through what we had been warned was a tricky navigational section that was coming up.
We were looking for the 2nd major stream on our right, in order to follow it's valley up to Cow Saddle, and we soon found a first stream, and then a 2nd, with a promising looking valley. Unfortunately there was also a marked track following our original valley, which didn't seem to be on our map. A couple of minutes of futher analysis and we decided that we were actually a valley early, and that the first stream we had encountered was obviously not on our map.
Armed with this decision, we followed the track along to the next valley, and headed up that.
Here the fact that we were travelling in daylight really paid off, as there were huge gaps between the markers, and though we could have just bashed up the middle of the valley, the track was a better option given that we were able to follow it with a modicum of success. The track climbed out of this valley up the side of a huge slip, and we could soon see the obvious slip, and quickly spotted where the track went bush just before it, and once more headed upwards, after a final confirmation that no-one had caught us in the stream section.
Following the track up with little difficulty, we reached a number of very large downed trees just as dusk fell with a thud, and despite decent quality lights, and what we hoped was a decent search pattern, we failed to re-find the track, and an executive decision was made to bush bash upwards to the saddle, and rejoin the track there. Thankfully the bush was pretty clear here, and this proved to be a reasonable decision, the only problem being that we ended up wasting time by climbing above the saddle and dropping back down onto it, but that was better than a lot of the alternatives!
Now we once more knew exactly where we were, it was time to make the best time we could, as we dropped down to the next CP at Cow Creek Hut, where, after Barry knocked down the Mountain Radio Aerial ( apparently every team so far had ), we grabbed the offered Tim Tams, found out that we were now 2 hours behind Ian and Fanny, and set off on the route home!
Following the Waingawa river out, we tramped solidly along the undulating track for about 5Km before we had to start looking for the bridge above Mitre Flats hut. Checking a couple of likely 'bridge' tracks, there was no sign, and the spotlight didn't show up anything within range, which was rather odd, especially when we came across Mitre Flats Hut itself, having passed the bridge according to the map!
Thankfully at this point we remembered having been here during the National Rogaine champs, and that the bridge had been washed out and was rebuilt South of the Hut, so we followed our noses, and, just before starting to get worried about whether our minds were playing tricks, found said bridge!
Crossing the bridge, we looked for a track alongside the river while Barry explored alternative options, and found the real track heading up the bank above us, so we started following his nose.
What had faded into memory as a reasonably pleasant track when we were here last jumped into our presents as an annoying, steeply rolling and generally pretty hard work 4K that eventually dumped us out onto a farm, and then just over 2K of gravel track that Wally set the pace along, forcing the boys to try and keep up, determined as she was ( despite lack of evidence of anyone following us ) to ensure that we weren't overtaken at this stage.
Jogging out to the pines, and the unassisted MTB transition there, we soon found our bikes, changed into the requisite gear, and we headed off down Upper Waingawa road, Shane getting his usual 'only about 10K to go' second wind, which was nicely assisted by the general downhill nature of this last ride.
Getting onto the seal of the Upper Plain Rd, we formed up and bunch rode out, counting off the roads as we passed them, until the shout of 'in here' as we reached 'Llandaff', and just had the piffling matter of the Kilometre long driveway until we rounded a corner to find Richard sat with Helen, Nyree and Sean entertaining each other with logic puzzles.
The winds on the Rimutaka's were apparently in full blow, so Helen had sorted us out some accomodation in Masterton, so we were able to return to the prizegiving the following day nicely refreshed to pick up our prize for finishing 4th overall, and 2nd in class!
This, our best result so far as a team, set us up nicely at the top of the Arrow series, with only Groundworks Queenstown, who had won this race, really in contention for the series, and we couldn't have done it, as usual, without the support of those both in the background, and of course Helen and Nyree very much in the foreground!
