Well I think it speaks for itself. We joined forces; the team for the race consisting of - Bennie Prinsloo, Captain, First Swazi. Bradley Smit, Comedian, First Swazi. Corne van Biljon, Straight & Narrow, First Swazi; and Cobus Liakos, Negotiator; ‘Been there; got the T-Shirt’.

Hell there is a lot of planning in such an event and the more prepared you are the more you need to be prepared. Our seconds, consisting of Mable Prinsloo, Bernard, Elvrede; if it weren’t for them, well we would have never made it. A person doesn’t realise what dedication it takes to be a second, and at the end they are more exhausted than the racers, but we cannot express our thanks enough towards the seconds and …. “teams, go and thank your seconds again!” Well done!

The race. It was long, we made it in 50 hours. This was done without any sleep, so you could imagine how we felt at the end - looking at each other wasn’t such a good feeling anymore, and the smell is nothing to talk of!

The start and we are off. What a great feeling, we had the opportunity of staying with Bruce Fordyce for a whole two minutes before he left us. …. We made a few mistakes in the beginning, finding Swazi posters on poles but no punch, so we had a camera and took a photo of us next to the pole with the Swazi poster and offered photos to other teams for R10, but later realized that in fact this wasn’t the checkpoint at all, ja… moving forward. The short swim felt good, no broken glass or anything wanting to grab you. On route noticed pineapples which felt that it carried on forever.

The transition area, I had my bicycle serviced and repaired the week before and hadn’t even tested it having faith in my local bicycle shop [tip: check your bicycle even though you have faith in your bicycle shop!] but not even a km down the road, my jocket snapped right off! … and the bicycle wasn’t going anywhere. My normal reaction would be to swear and give it a good kick, but hey! I was trying to keep my strength, a quick run back to collect a back-up bicycle, clever I would say, teams take note!! Maybe a back-up bicycle could be a thing of the future - you can use it or use parts if needed. [tip:] This is our first tip of the report if you haven’t noticed!

We took a wrong turn and landed up ‘hike a bike’ over some mountains, and did some downhills on our bicycles which children shouldn’t try at home.

Ahead lay the big hike, well it went well until we landed up in the mist, and couldn’t see anything in front of us. We walked around the same mountain four times before we realized we had made a mistake - at this point the second tip: if you have appointed the ‘navigator’ let him do his job! We had two navigators on our team and the one sent us one way and the other sent us the other way! damn! Have one navigator [tip number 2] - it will save you a lot of time as you can see. Yes, we were on our way, still feeling pretty good.

We decided not to sleep, and try and win some time, much it helped us. CP14 must have been my favourite point, spent most of our time Saturday looking for this point. We walked up and down the same mountain four times and then four times left and then right. We later decided that, hey we were going to miss the PC, what a let down, but as soon as your spirits are low, something happens, we were on the wrong mountain! Again, making use of our ‘two’ navigators!!

My feet were killing me and Bennie was complaining as well, interesting we had the same shoes on; but not mentioning names, sometimes the name brands appear to be only a name and don’t do any good on the feet. Tip 3: use shoes that you are comfortable with.

The rest was pretty much a blur until the absail; climbing back on our hands and knees, no sleep was becoming a major problem. At one stage on the cycle leg, Corne decided he had to sleep and had a fall, nothing serious but, I am sure he was awake after that! Bennie had a flat wheel and while changing the tube had a few minutes of sleep in between changing the tube.

The paddling section was ahead, we hit one side of the canal and then the other and so we carried on for almost all the way. Corne and Cobus thought we were not ‘well in the head’ and then we hit a puncture, what fun! The back of the raft was gone, we used the front section a few kms before the end singing ‘row row row your boat gently down the stream; when you see a crocodile; kick your ass and run.’

The End.

Well I hope you enjoy the report and remember -
Where the hell is North!?! «