Race Report: UGE 48hour @ Memel (Eastern Freestate) Team: Three Spirit It seemed like we were on the planes of the Serengeti, trekking on the savanna with all the animals giving us a show as ordered by the race director. We were heading for the last CP and finish line, and McCain was just behind us to finish this rogaine style classic AR. In front of us was herds of animals and we were about to join them. We blinked, and McCain was next to us, inviting us for a final jog to the finish, but we offered to spectate only. They proceeded running joining up with the herds, and the show begun, all the animals got excited and started running in their herds towards us. There were Gnu's, Zebra's and Rooihartebeest running past us leaping through the air followed by a bunch of ostriches, amazing!
We were racing as a trio, team three spirit, and wanted to do a social race and feed our need for adventure, but we also wanted to get all the compulsory CP's and finish the race. After starting the race on a steep koppie, we trekked over mountains and crossed rivers, one of witch we had to swim though. As we got closer to the first transition we saw somebody looking at us with binoculars and then he would quickly disappear in the bushes again, must have been a martial spying, this is how good this race was organized. We biked and hiked though the night with wet shoes from the dew, slept 2 hours next to cattle in a field, and was rewarded with a beautiful sunrise from the escarpment. The clouds looked like a river flowing down the mountain gorge, slowly being eaten up by the rising sun. We bundu'ed through a kloof, found a ruin w/o a punch (being in this area felt like being back in the seventenhunders) and woke gustav (rock and rope) up for the waterfall abseil. The +-40m abseil was next to a waterfall, luckily they didn't send us though the waterfall, so we stayed dry, but got wet swimming over the river reaching transition in an awesome river lodge making ready for the longer mountainbike leg. It was good to be on your mountainbike again, and we enjoyed it thoroughly, but the heat got to us all, so we decided to make the most of the land access and stopped at one of the bigger farm dams and went for a dip to cool down, the water was dirty, but deeper into the dam the water was freezing cold, giving us much needed relief from the heat. This was followed by more heat,overheat and sunburn, and finally our water ran out. We stopped at one of the farm houses, and a friendly farmers wife filled our bladders with a jug of water. The farmer just wanted to offer us something stronger, like wiskey or brandy but we just wanted water. After a never ending hill, a freebee OP next to the road and lots of overheating, we reached transition. After a bit of a rest, we were ready for warfare, trekking up the amajuba koppie and finding lauren on the top waiting at a CP to do a kit check. We were well prepared, and she let us go. As we didn't have a paraglider, and the next CP was far below us, we had to go down the same way we came and catch a different contour line, reaching transition just before nightfall. We started the mountainbike leg, got a scare from a drunk guy and found the old railway tunnel filled with water and water dripping from the roof, it took us quite a while to get trough it and when we did it felt like it was a wormhole into another dimension. We were on the old railway track service road system, and had allot of fun speeding over rocks/ruts and stuff, until eugene broke his seat post. Out came the cable ties and spare tubes, and we made a plan in no time. We slipped past a farmers dog, found a CP and reached transition for a quick 2 hour sleep before the hike next to the river. We started the hike 3am, saw eugene(uge) get stuck in the mud with his bakkie, and offered to help. As we reached transition we saw McCain come in on the river paddling, it was awesome to be spectators of the top teams. The next stage involved more mountainbiking on the railway service roads reaching the final transition, and entering a game reserve taking us to the finish. After being entertained by the animals and swimming over a river we reached the finish line with me and eugene running up the stair case trying to beat each other up first. What a Feeling!! :D I would like to send a very big thank you to Eugene(uge), Nic and all the marshals, It was an awesome race, and we had an awesome time. Thank you!! Also to our seconds Tommy and Karen, you were the best seconds i ever had. Stats: Team Name: Three Spirit Team Members: Eugene Kelly, Theresa Styles, Jacques Booysen Seconds: Tommy & Karen Mileage: +-173km Smileage: Infinite Time: 46 hours and 5 minutes CPs: all 25 compulsory points OP's: 3 optional points Jacques --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DarkAndDirty" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/DarkAndDirty?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
