The best adventure races in Australia

It was my second Geoquest and probably around 10th smaller (30-50hours) expedition race. I’ve got a spot in a very good team again with Hugh Stodart, and Sam Stedman and Jenny Roberts from Townsville. It is amazing how team got formed, from different and so remote spots. I’ve raced twice with Hugh both times quite successfully with 10th place finish at 2011 AR World Championships in Tassie and 13th at 2012 Ordos Adventure Quest in China. I met Sam a year ago once and I met Jenny just before the race. I personally think, it is of course better to train together to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses before the race and hence working better as a team, however,  after you reach a certain level, you can go with any experienced team without any major issues and race successfully. Looking backwards, I’m super happy to get spot with these amazing guys and have got a great opportunity to race with them!

We got all our stuff and maps ready early, and named ‘Outer Limits’ were ready to jump in our boats after short run down the hill and commence first Geoquest stage – ocean paddle! We paddled two double Fenn Elite skis, awesome crafts if you are able to handle them. We did quite well, especially considering it was our first paddle in doubles together, me with Sam and Hugh with Jenny. I would not say I felt rock solid sitting in those skis and did brace a few times, but we were confident enough to stay in skis and pick up some nice runners. Four male team (I believe it was team Rogue) finished ocean paddle first, then Macpac and our team a minute behind.Quick TA (huge thanks to our support crew!) and we were off to the second trekking.

Macpac started this trekking just behind us but managed to overtake us with and build 5 minutes gap by the end of this trek that was quite simple navigationwise, but had one 500 m water crossing. We jumped in the water without doing any preparation and I think this is the best tactic. Another memorable moment of this trek was quite steep and big uphill with about 400m vertical, which we did with double towline very quick.

Back in the skis, now for 16km flat water paddle. Nothing especially bright about this stage apart from building back 3 minutes (according to our support crew watch) to Macpac. As a card carrier I had to walk through the muddy swampy shoreline to punch control card, and went very dirty after that stage!

Next stage was quite unlucky for us with a couple of poor navigation choices. Still looking at the map I cannot say why we did so bad, but that was where Macpac put another 40-50 minutes on us and Mountain Designs team caught us up too.  Our rogaining choice was quite smart and we did not do any navigation mistakes. We were unlucky with one of the CPs, where we had to bush-bash through a very thick stuff both down a creek junction and back up to the track, but apart from that there were no major issues with our route choice. Apparently both Macpac and MD did better job choosing their route.

(@Geoquest.com.au) 

We jumped on the bikes, it was already dark by then. Lights worked perfectly, Hugh took over navigation from me and we rolled down the hill. First turn was quite unfortunate as Sam had a quite hard crash on a corner just over the rocky road surface. Tough man, stood up and continued a couple of minutes later. I started to struggle by then with a sick stomach, even though I knew it possibly would happen and did get a few pills with me that did not help me very well though. This mtb stage was the hardest for me, with stomach issues it is never a good fun to exercise. It gradually fade away towards the end of the stage, and I felt strong again back on foot. We rode head to head with MD team, and then somehow came to TA a few minutes ahead, probably our route choice at the end was a bit better.

It was already about 11 pm or so, dark and cold. We took off running fast uphill, only to find that black ‘walking’ track which was marked on the map, never existed. MD guys caught us up when we were hesitant to go down to the creek and commence ~2,5k bush-bash stage. It is also seemed to me not evident how to spot the way out of the creek, considering no track along the creek. MD team was quite excited to go down and have a look what was there, we let them go and choose a safe 5k run around option with heaps of uphill but all on tracks. It was a very wise decision to do so, and I think we made about 2 hours on MD only by this choice. The rest of the section was quite obvious, but I had to mention that a way out from that CP was very thick with heaps of lantana. We were quite spot on to get to the little track going up the ridgeline and left by earlier logging. We made it to TA, and our support crew fed us with soup, that was brilliant! I was very hungry, as I did a few hours without eating anything to let my stomach settle down.

With pretty quick TA, again we jumped on bikes, only to find out 5km later that Sam had forgotten his bib and we had to return back to TA to collect it.

Good it was not at the end of the stage – we turned around quickly, and we were back riding again! Start of this ride was memorably cold, but then sun started to rise and we’ve got some extra energy from a new daylight. We came down to TA for a 5k trekking, did it quickly and then jumped back on the bikes.

This last ride was full of surprises as well, a bit misleading first CP set at ‘old quarry’, but there were two quarries there indeed, and we were unlucky to start our search from the first one. We even thought to call Craig but then we’ve found another quarry with CP in it! Good job, and we continued to roll collecting other CPs. All was excellent till the last CP before TA, where we got a bit lost and left another 20 minutes trying to figure out where we are and how to get to the last CP. When we knew where we are, we took apparently quickest way, which led us to 30m water crossing. With the bikes we have to turn back, and ride around another 3-4 k to get to the CP. Once done we rolled quite comfortably to the kayak TA, and without spending much time jumped in boats to paddle the final stage to the finish.

Kayak was quicker than we thought, and an hour later we were standing under the arch with remarkable second place! I personally think that we did our best and we probably even under the best of luck conditions would not ca up Macpac anyway. Huge thanks to the team – Hugh Stodart, Sam Stedman, Jenny Roberts; our awesome support crew Belinda Stedman, Duncan Stodart, Rick and little Jamie Stodart and of course to the team sponsor ‘Outer Limits’!!!