Team: Adrian Saffy, Hano Otto, Christo Viljoen & Anna Gutter

Having heard and read so much about the Swazi Extreme and the XL happenings that Darron Raw creates at the event had me Extra keen to enter the event someday. This year was to be the year.

Our team was made up of Myself, Christo Viljoen a relative novice AR racer, Anna Gutter a novice (she was however the last women standing in the Elite Ops TV show that Sakkie Meyer won) and Hano Otto who brought Swazi Experience to the team having only missed one of the Swazi Extreme events and having winning two of the previous events.

Coming from the flat Freestate where the paddling training that we do mainly consists of laps around Loch Logan where the fear of falling in and getting some dreaded fungal disease is an adventure in itself. I was dreading the 20k grade IV paddle section and the photo's Darron sent out didn't help.

We arrived in Swaziland at the Race venue on Thursday evening and immediately were impressed by the vibe and excited atmosphere among the racers. We greeted old friends set up camp and registered and plotted our maps from the pre plotted master copies.

At race briefing the frills and thrills of things to be experienced were shortly carried over to us by Darron. Just like in my Triathlon days my race would start to be less stressful when I got off the water. Rafting being a discipline very hard to practice in Bloem, Grade IV rapids having never been attempted to before in a Croc.

The race started in an interesting manner and we were given magnetic bearings and distances to CP's 1,2,3and 4 right before the start. Not being accustomed to receiving our co-ords in this fashion created quite a flurry of discussion trying to remember the correct principles involved, whether to add or subtract the declination etc. Thanks to Lisa & Evan I was able to manage and plot the points in the short time given.

The start of the race was fast and furious running down the tar road before turning off into the cultivated lands to locate CP1. Being a bit sheep like I ran behind the top teams not really taking the distance covered into account this caused a bit of searching and we eventually located the CP after some bundu bashing. CP 2 and 3 were easily located and we got our first early swim behind our backs. We ran to CP 4 goal posts on an island and onto the rafting section and the beginning of what would turn out a "NIGHTMARE" for Christo and myself.

Christo has never paddled in a river before never mind done any whitewater rafting of any sort. I have limited white water experience down the Orange and Vaal but mainly in larger 6 to 8 men rafts. Off we set behind Hano & Anna. At least Hano was experienced and had completed river guiding certificates. The 1st big drop was Awesome, so the 2nd and 3rd. We were cooking Christo was pumped this wasn't so bad. I then spotted the mother of all drops and said to Christo we are portaging. He was peeved at me seeing that we nailed the first few so well. Thank goodness I stuck to my guns much to the dismay of the cameraman waiting to capture the fool that tried to shoot the monster. After portaging we found out that no one had shot that rapid (say sorry Christo) and for good reason. After seeing that drop I knew this river was SERIOUS!

We came to the next big drop saw the guides with their throw bags, took the line and got PUMMELED BIG TIME. Our first major swim. We saved equipment, bags and ourselves but unfortunately our confidence was washed down the river. From there we broadsided nearly every rock, swam many time and were just tense to the bone making our job much harder and fighting the flow instead of letting it take us.

We had 2 close calls on this leg; the first came at a tree block in the river. Me being as tense as I was decided to portage but Hano’s Croc got washed against the tree. They got pinned and Anna trapped under for a short while before using brute force to lift herself out of the rivers clutches. The 2nd call could have ended in tragedy but thanks to the Man Above, to Whitewater Trainings swift water rescue course (Thanks Hugh), and to circumstances had a positive ending. Christo and I shot the rapid with a surprise rock in it, our croc hit the rock broadsided and the flow flipped us as we were to light to lean into the rock. The river was washing us to the bank and I held onto the croc. Chris was getting washed towards the trees on the bank ahead of me and made the big mistake taught over and over not to do he tried to stand up in the rapid. He immediately screamed and I knew the dreaded consequences. He had a foot entrapment. I knew the seriousness of the situation and being behind him for a reason immediately grabbed the back of his life jacket holding his head up. I got a footing and fought the push of the river trying to carry me downstream screaming for Hano to help. Eventually I got a better footing and tried to dislodge Christo's foot. After what felt like an eternity he was free and shaken and stirred we gave thanks and proceeded to the take out.

Our hike to the transition ended in a jog trying to catch the teams ahead. We caught and passed Bearing Man and caught Century 2000 at the transition. Etienne our second and my old racing partner and injured team member of Sterling Light Lager had our transition area sorted to the T. We had a quick transition to the bike and tackled the mainly uphill cycle to collect CP's 7 and 8 before tackling the gravity defeating death defying downhill advertised in Darron's race preview to collect CP 9 and onto the transition.

We started the long hike through the gorge to CP13 and soon found ourselves in the company of good friends in team Century 2000 and the wild and wacky bunch of Team Olympus. It’s always a pleasure to tackle any stage with Vicky and Anthea they make the journey lighter. We made a nav error on this route by hugging the river in the dark of night, only realizing much later that we were heading up a tributary. We corrected this and opted to backtrack and hike through the gorge than go over the top. We had a memorable hike next to the river through the night with Hano finding many creative routes for us to proceed forward. We bouldered, bundubashed, waded and eventually clipped CP13 in the first light of morning. We then proceeded to CP14 but on route I made my 2nd and thankfully last nav error by taking the team towards the transition and not the CP wasting time. Thankfully we realized our mistake before starting the vicious climb to the transition.

CP 14 was at the most amazing lodge I have ever seen. It was built in and around massive boulders and was to awesome to describe Craig Dutton was impressed with this lodge and will have pics on his site, have a look this is unbelievable and at only R90/person per night is amazing value for money.

We proceeded to the transition grabbed our bikes and headed off to CP 15. Darron had another surprise in the technical downhill section and jeep track towards the CP. The tracks navigated were not reflected on the map so we proceeded with caution and hit the CP spot on after an awesome RIDEABLE (at last) downhill that we could fly down for a change.

We proceeded towards CP16 and surprise, surprise a lekker hike your bike over the saddle section, thankfully ride able on the other side. I kinda like hike a bike sections its what makes me an adventure racer. Good training! We moved on past this CP to the tar road and to the OP where we had a sleep for 20 min but this was with hindsight to short. Hano with his experience suggested that we sleep in the plantation, I thought 20min why waste the time, lets just sleep next to the road. We wasted our time it was freezing and the sleep didn't do my team any good.

We pushed on towards CP17 a school and had our only bad experience of the race when we were moving targets for some unseen stone throwers hidden in the maize fields. Lucky they weren't that accurate. As the roads reflected on the map have been upgraded and differently laid out we overshot the CP by about a kilo before realizing our mistake and backtracking accompanied by Magic and his band of merry Swazi's marveling at our bikes, packs and equipment. These young locals are extremely fit running alongside us for kilo's before returning home.

We proceeded to CP18 and had a 1hr sleep next to the tar road under some trees before continuing on what turned out to be a steep bike push over the saddle before descending onto the CP and the transition.

At the transition our super 2nd informed us of the situation being played out in the kloof. There were three teams sleeping before tackling the last kloof and ropes section. Two teams team Jeep and Teams Cross Contour had been in the kloof for a long long time. The leading teams took about 5 to 6 hours to complete the leg in the daylight. We decided to rest awhile and leave an hour before daylight hopefully before the resting teams and so make up a few positions.

We left in the dark and into the kloof for what must rank as my best kloofing leg ever experienced. After hitting CP19 spot on we slid and slided our way down waterfalls and waterslides to CP 20 then up to CP21. Hano did an excellent route finding job and led us through at a quick pace. From CP 21 came a scary scramble up the side of the kloof on a path used by the leading teams (THANKS GUYS U ROCK) that took us to the edge of our abilities due to the loose ground under foot the steep angle and the death drop should we make a mistake. Having pulled ligaments in my shoulder with the rafting sections I was quite vulnerable on this leg, as I couldn't really grip the sparse handholds.

Hano led us to safety and we got the first glimpse of the XXXXL traverse. AWSOME SIGHT. We proceeded to the rope section. A belayed rock climb, thereafter a muddy jumar and finally a scramble up to the bottom of the traverse.

It will be difficult to describe the traverse in words but I'm sure there will be many pictures so look out for them. The traverse was set up across a waterfall about 30m wide and 80m high. To get clipped into the system one had to climb up between two trees on a make shift rope stairway that for me was the most daunting section of the rope works. For tall guys like Nicholas this must have been a breeze. After clipping in you had to pull yourself across the waterfall and no free ride was available you had to pull the whole way and the last stretch needed a fair amount of strength. An Awesome tough traverse. Great stuff.

We pumped the last leg to home finishing in 10th place.

We had a great race filled with a lifetime of experiences, from near death experiences to almost heavenly experiences. To my team, thanks guys Christo and Anna you can no longer fall under the banner of novice, you had your baptism of fire. Hano thanks for your experience and knowledge and great path finding abilities, its lekker racing with you and learning from you. Etta you are a star my mate. I know you would rather be racing and one day seeing that our team family is growing, I will be seconding you dude.

To all my mates in the other teams thanks for the camaraderie, we are a different breed and sometimes I think that the only people that understand our sort are the racers themselves.

To our sponsor Sterling Light Lager. Thanks you really put so much into our team and sport and so many of the racers have been introduced to Sterling Light Lager through our handouts at events. It’s an honor to use our bodies as your adventurous billboards.

Lastly thanks to Darron an his team, the rope guys, medics, marshals you made my first Swazi a memorable one and I will definitely be back for more. «