“ It quickly shot up into the
air and leaped forward at us hissing ”
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Becky Law Bivouac Inov-8
RACE INSIGHT
Leg 11: 45 km trek through the “maze”: This trek was not our finest moment of the race it’s hard to remember it all in the right order, as it feels like a week-long excursion. We left Mingela and crossed the highway into an area where we were warned that the tracks would not match the map. There was a rule that we could cross the rail way line but were not allowed to stay within 50m of it. We had to bash through some pretty dense spiky bushes to get away from the railway line, but found fairly clear ground on the other side. We came out onto a nice trail which we followed until we hit a set of cattle yards. The road ended and we tried to find a trail down into the valley below to the next CP. This was the maze. There were hundreds of cattle trails going everywhere and in the dark it was impossible to figure out where we were and were supposed to be going.
We spent a number of hours wandering around aimlessly and finally sat down and took a 20min nap. The sun came up and in front of us was a 4wd trail. Without thinking we all thought this was the trail we were looking for and quickly ran down it. Nothing was matching up once at the bottom so we climbed a high point to get a good idea of where we actually were. Ryan and Mark spent some time looking at the mountain ranges and high points all around and came to the realisation we had missed the mark by a long way and needed to traverse a few km cross country to get to the next CP.
As we were on our way we met up with Merrell again. I think our hearts all sunk slightly as they were a number of hours behind us when we first started this leg. We eventually found the CP on a knoll which
was a lot higher than what was marked on the map. By this stage it was hot again and we were running low on water. We needed to keep up with Merrell so picked up the pace into a jog and tried to keep in the shade as we made our way to the Reid River canyon. It was very dry with only a small number of waterholes to refill all our water bottles.
hands and feet. To make matters worse 2 head lights had died and we were relying on 2 to get down from the final CP to TA.
me up and made for a quicker transition than we were thought we were going to have.
From the CP Mark took a bearing and said when we hit the road all we need to do is turn left and it will take us straight to the TA. We walked for hours and hours. Nothing was making sense, the house we could see on the map we had passed and still not hit the road.
Leg 12: 50 km bike ride to the finish: Our last leg! After we rehydrated rode off into the night down a long dirt road. The roads were easy going, and there were some fun undulations to keep things interesting. We were unlucky to get stuck behind a large mob of cattle which we just couldn’t get past so spent about an hour just following them until they got to a gate and dispersed.
We were going up and down massive water reservoirs which we couldn’t find on the map. By this stage we had not had any water for about 6 hours and were so dehydrated we could hardly swallow or eat
Boulder hopping further up the canyon to find the track that would take us further. At the next CP we got a pleasant surprise a crate was left there by the race organisers with a bottle of coke and a can of pringles per team! We stopped and devoured these before moving on.
food. The team was feeling very deflated at this stage and spirits were low. We made the decision to go back to the house and The hike to the next CP was straight find a trough or hose to drink from even if forward but somehow we took a wrong it meant going into the out of bounds area ridge line. We were bashing again through we needed water ASAP. On the way back dry waist high scrub and grass. we jumped over this metal gate into what we thought was a small horse paddock to As we stepped onto find a trough. But a track there was a big long green and even if it meant going into the what we found was the dirt road black snake. The boys out of bounds we needed water we were looking thought it would be for all along and in a good idea to throw the distance was a a rock to the side of small light of the TA. it and see what happened. It quickly shot up into the air and leaped forward at us We slowly made our way there with our hissing. I don’t think we had moved as fast heads hung low as we thought by this in the race as we did then. stage we would have been passed by a number of teams. To our surprise we saw We all got away unharmed and a little only 2 names on the check-in sheet. We bit more worried about the next section couldn’t believe it. This was an instant pick of bush bashing and where we placed our
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The Dry Earth Maze
Ryan navigated the way back to Townsville. Once arriving in town we had a series of CPs to collect which meant following the city cycle trail, unfortunately the team was extremely tired at this stage and the navigation turned into a bit of a nightmare and we made a few errors and just took the road back to the finish. We were so happy cross the finish line in 3rd place early in the morning. After a few beers, glasses of champagne and some race banter we were ready to hit
the hay. Haha due to not knowing when we were going to finish we hadn’t booked any accommodation post-race do it was another night spent curled up in a 2 man tent on the lawn at the finish line. We all agreed that we had a great time and that the team dynamics were fantastic and to come away with 3rd was an awesome achievement. It was a bit sad that the fantastic adventure was over and that it was back to reality.