Team: Graham Bird, Jeannette Walder, Cobus van Zyl, Sakkie Meyer

We got to the Malkerns country club, the venue for Swazi Extreme Adventure Race on Thursday lunch time. The cricket field was already covered with tents and kit promising an exciting race with many teams wanting to take home the honors. We were handed our maps at registration and copied all the PC points from the master maps. Briefing was nice and short before supper and then it was off to bed for a decent seven hour sleep before the 5am wake up call.

We started at 6am Friday morning with a hike involving tracking down four PC points using compass bearings and distance. It took us a bit of time to find the first point, losing a few minutes to the lead teams, which were Powerade Cyanosis and Jeep. A short swim across a dam and off we where chasing the teams ahead. We caught them just before a check point on one of the many islands in a river. This is where we split, Powerade Cyanosis went river right while Jeep stayed behind looking river left. We went onto what we thought was the island but meanwhile the check point was on another island to the left, hanging on a soccer pole. We clipped the PC with Powerade Cyanosis and ran together to the 1st transition, the start of the white water section.

After a very quick transition thanks to our super second, De Wet Grobler, setting up the two man inflatable croc's. We left on the WW section together with Powerade Cyanosis. The WW section was a cat and mouse game between us and Powerade Cyanosis. Either we got stuck and they passed or vice versa. This paddling section was awesome with drops the size of waterfalls and many options to choose from, well scouting was never an option. We had Sakkie in the boat who now and then stood up and check out where to go. The best entertainment was provided at DSTV rapid. Tweet and Kobus took the honors shooting it 1st , but got stuck in the back wash. Next was Nicholas and Clinton from Powerade who managed to take a swim while knocking Tweet and Kobus out of the backwash, there boat then getting stuck in the backwash. Myself and Sakkie were right behind them, going straight over poor Clinton (sorry). Kobus managed to lose his paddle, while Tweet broke his! Luckily we had a spare paddle with us and managed to find Kobus's paddle a little further down stream. We were in the lead but with all the channels we never knew if we took the faster option or if Powerade Cyanosis had paddled past us. Once we realized we we close to the take out, we stayed close to the right hand side of the river, looking for the marshal.

Unfortunately Darron had underestimated the time we would take to complete this leg and there was no one in sight. We paddled past where the check point should have been continuing to look for the marshal, next thing we heard a shout from Tweet from around the corner telling us to back paddle. When myself and Sakkie come around the corner we saw big eyes from poor Kobus and very fast paddling from Tweet - up stream! There was a huge drop which looked mean and rocky. We climbed out, took a look at the map and decided that we were definitely passed the take out. Darren would definitely have mentioned this rapid. With the crocs on our heads, we started hiking back up the river along a road next to the river. While on the road Darren and the marshal come screaming round the corner in their Land Rover, we had a quick chat and off they drove trying to catch the other teams. We where allowed to leave the crocs and run to the check point. Team Watts Sports arrived just as we clipped, we quickly left and ran the 3kms with our paddles to the next transition, wondering what had happened to Powerade Cyanosis.

We climbed onto our bikes as Team Watts Sport arrived at the TA. This was a mean mother cycle. I'm sure I would have been faster going backwards. It was in the midday heat, up hills and more up hills. Has Swaziland never heard of Tunnels? The downhill's where even worse, so one pushed up the hill and one pushed down the hill! Can't say this was our best leg cycling leg ever! We finally reached the TA and were treated to an awesome hot meal thanks to our second and the McCain Adventure Addicts seconds!!

It was then off onto what looked like a major hiking/kloofing section. Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants and Powerade Cyanosis came into Transition just as we were leaving …. awesome cycling guys! On our way out all the top teams where coming in USN, Cross Contour, Jeep etc. We started off on a nice trail along the river but knew it was too good to be true and darkness was already settling in. Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants and Powerade Cyanosis caught us after about 4hrs; we hiked together, scrambling along the river, thru bushes and boulder hopping. Passing the PC next to the river, we then continued on the hiking trail next to the river. It made for a nice change, 3 Teams working together, chatting and making decisions together. We finally started heading out of the kloof towards the next PC. We where nearly at the top when we realized we had missed the trail turning off towards the PC. After a huge team meeting with all three teams, Powerade Cyanosis decided to back track to find the turn off, while Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants and us decided to carry on going up, getting to the PC via the back route. This is where Powerade Cyanosis got away, their option was the better choice. During this time the sleep monster come to visit us, Sakkie and PJ Doyer from Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants forming a real close friendship keeping each other awake, while I was seeing sunglasses on the road everywhere. We got to the transition with Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants; Powerade Cyanosis had a 45min lead. We decided to sleep for 1h15 until 5am, since we were useless and the navigation on the start of the next bike leg looked really tricky and the morning light would hopefully help in finding the PC quicker. Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants carried on to the 2nd biking leg.

We got woken up by our super second Dewet and off we went nicely rested. 2h40 behind Powerade Cyanosis and 1h15 behind Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants. Our decision proved correct, catching Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants at the next PC point. We had daylight to find our way while they struggled during night time. Back to the cat and mouse game but this time with the Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants. Again there were some major up hills and one of these involved a hike a bike section. We arrived together at the transition for the start of our kloofing and ropework section. We were now 1h15 behind Powerade Cyanosis.

Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants got out before us and disappeared into the distance. We took a different way into the kloof and to our surprise where in front of the Ants. This section was stunning and awesome, moving along the river, climbing up big boulders was really fun and we had a good pace going. The only obstacle was a big water fall which we had to pass to be able to get to the rope section. We scrambled up on the left side thru the bushes and down again suddenly reaching an open section and a huge stunning beautiful waterfall awaited us. The rope section!! Powerade Cyanosis was half way up the ropes section. We had managed to close the gap to just 26 mins behind them and we were approximately 45 mins in front of the Ants!! This section consists of a rock scramble to the 1st level then a jumar up to the top and then a spider web climb up a tree and a traverse across the edge of the waterfall. Let me tell you this water fall was high. The scramble up the rock was interesting for me since Kobus went 1st and I just got dragged and pulled up by him, stuff the foot and hand holds, I basically got dragged along the rock face. The jumar was a bit slippery but fine. Then come the spider web, let me explain: 2 big tall pine trees a few feet apart and a rope webbed between the two. We had to climb up the rope to be able to get to the start of the traverse. It went better then I thought - not one swear word. The traverse was hard, requiring a lot of effort to pull yourself across.

It was then back onto our bikes for the final 12km downhill to the finish. We clocked just over 34 hours in 2nd position, about 1h10 behind Powerade Cyanosis and about 45mins ahead of the Sandown Mitsubishi Red Ants! What a great race!! Thanks to Darren Raw and his team from Swazi Trails for a truly wonderful race. It certainly was extra large!!

Finally thanks to all our sponsors, whom this would not be possible without:
DUESOUTH for all the support, clothing and kit.
RALEIGH – for the RM7.0 mountain bikes, which performed fantastically the whole race
ENERGY DYANMICS – for the energy products necessary to keep us going!
LINDEN CYCLES – for all the great service and advice.

Photo: Ryan Woodley «