As with all big Adventure Race's, planning starts LONG in advance and this year it was no different for Team Adventure Inc. Red Ants! We started planning and strategising the logistics and game plan for this race months ago, as we knew that ALL of South Africa's top Adventure Racing teams would be there.

As race day drew nearer, our final racing team was decided on, this year, Team Red Ants were going to tackle Swazi with Nicky Booyens (our own fiery little pocket rocket Red Ant, and Captain!), Gert Foster (Chief nav and never say die MACHINE!), Ryan Hodierne (team workhouse and resident Houdini (I'll get back to that later!)) and myself (assistant navigator and bundu- basher...). The Team was seconded by Gerrard Booyens, Louis Mulder and Garry and Jen Townsend.

As with all previous Swazi's, we knew Darron was gonna have some tricks up his sleeve, and with this year having the most competitive field ever assembled for a Swazi, we knew the race was on... and it was gonna be tough!

We hadn't even left SA when our fun started... our dear team mate Ryan, realized on Wednesday (2 days before departure) that his passport had expired... eish.... So what to do?? We tried everything at Home affairs in Pretoria, but as you know, because everything works so efficiently at home affairs, Ryan was unable to get an emergency travel document... so the fun began, and the Houdini disappearing act! Long story short, Ryan got into Swaziland, and out again... we'll leave the nitty- gritty details of how this was actually done to your imagination!! J

Well, onto racing! After arriving at Waterford College near Mbabane, we settled in and received our maps, to begin plotting the course off master maps placed around the hall. After some 3 hours of plotting, assessing, highlighting and waterproofing the maps, we were ready for action! The maps indicated some fairly large areas of a complete orange haze, which meant only one thing... BIG MOUNTAINS!!

After a detailed briefing in the College hall, it was off to bed, to try and get some much needed sleep before the 7 am start the next morning!

As dawn broke on race day, so did some peoples sprits, as we were greeted with a wet, miserable and freezing cold day! With the weather having put a slight dampener (quite literally) on proceedings, the race start was delayed by an hour and a half.

Eventually 8:30am came, and we were off on our MTB's, flying down a tar road hill into the valley below Waterford College, with icy cold rain drops pelting our bodies! Lovely start to a 250km race!! J Having slipped out the back gate of the College, we were very happy to see that we arrived at CP1 at the bottom of the hill in first place! This really revved us up to get a move on!

Soon after CP1 it was evident who the top contenders at this years Swazi were going to be, with the likes of Team Landrover Gear/USN, both McCain teams, Cyanosis, Kinetic USN and ourselves at the head of the field from early on. This MTB leg took us winding through the outskirts of Mbabane and north- westwards towards the South African Boarder, and Transition 1. The first MTB was however not without incident; as three teams, including ourselves arrived at CP 3, to find it was not there... after some quick negotiation between team navigators, we decided we were in the correct place, and that it MUST be here somewhere! Lo and behold, as we were ready to agree to move on to CP 4, the marshal arrived, only about 15 minutes late!! With CP 3 successfully clipped, the major Hike-a- bike off the mountain began in earnest, with teams descending the mountainside in every direction!

As the race hotted up, we found ourselves in joint second place, accompanied by Team Sterling, Cyanosis and Voel's McCain. Team Landrover/USN was certainly pushing the pace at the front of the race, and we knew if we kept it steady, anything could happen... Approaching T1 on our bikes, we were unsure of our position, as we were alone, and the other teams with us had taken different route choices, and to our surprise we popped out at T1 in second place, with only Landrover ahead of us!

With newfound energy, we headed off on foot, to tackle some caving, abseiling and the daunting hike up Mount. Ngwenya. This hiking leg was absolutely awesome! It had everything from deep dark mine shafts to waterfall abseils to breathtaking views into opencast mines! As we ascended Mount Ngwenya, we once again found ourselves in a joint battle with 2 other teams, Tweets McCain and Cyanosis had taken the same ridge line up the mountain as we did, and we were now all together, with Landrover and Voel's McCain just up the road. It was late afternoon on the first day as we all summated Mt. Ngwenya, with a panoramic 360° view over Swaziland, reviling almost the whole route, which lay ahead of us. Was Darron trying to tell us something by sending us up there so early on in the race???... Probably something like: "you stupid idiots, look at these mountains you gotta traverse in the next 2 days" with a sinister giggle under his breath... Thanks Darron.

With 3 competitive teams all together, and 2 others within shouting distance behind us, you can imagine the pace wasn't all that slow on the decent of Mt. Ngwenya, as we were all running to save as much daylight for the next bike leg.

After a super quick transition at the Ngwenya mine, we were back on the bikes, passing Voel's McCain, and finding ourselves back in joint second place. We hurtled down the hill, only to realize we forgot to check out of transition, and then riding all the way back up the hill (at least it was a small hill!) to check out with the marshal. Lesson learnt!

With the light slowly fading, the pace picked up, and the chase group behind Team Landrover had now grown to 4 teams (the two McCain Teams, Cyanosis and ourselves) were all jockeying for positions, and sharing the path finding duties as day turned to night. The next couple of hours brought back fond memories of Swazi '06, when we hiked for 4 hours in joint 1st place with Teams Due South and Cyanosis, this time however, the race was for second place, and the goal was to catch Team Landrover.

As with all things in AR, the group of 4 teams slowly split up, with each navigator finding a different route, and making different decisions. Once again, The Ants were path finding alone in the darkness. It was however not long until we joined up with Cyanosis again, after Tweet and Mark had taken another route option. As the thick mist started rolling in on the Malolotja Nature Reserve, we rolled down the hill and into Transition at the Malolotja Camp site, to prep our bodies and chow down before a LONG night (and next day!) of hiking.

After some hearty soup, pasta and bread, provided by our super seconds, we were off on the long hike, just getting a couple of minutes lead on Cyanosis out of Transition. Our heads were up, as we were back in second, and marching towards the potholes and waterfalls at CP 20. With hiking not being our team's strength, we were soon passed by a flying Cyanosis outfit, and then an hour later by Voel's McCain, who passed us just before the potholes, like we were looking for parking!!

With a three- quarter moon high in the night sky, the kloof was lit up spectacularly, as the cliffs and white water glowed under the moonlight. This was surely one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in almost 5 years of doing AR, bum sliding, cliff jumping and kloofing under a moonlit Swaziland night! You just gotta have been there to know what I'm talking about!

With Voel's McCain right in front of us, we kept the pace up, until pothole No. 8 that was... It was here that our fearless Red Ant captain Nicky decided she'd had quite enough of this kloofing stuff, and promptly lost her cool and decided she could never and will never do this little 4 meter cliff jump in front of her. Eish... With Ryan, Gert and the 20m safety rope already in the pool below, it was up to my negotiating skills to convince Nicky that jumping was the ONLY option. Now don't get me wrong, Nicky isn't scared of heights or anything, I've seen her jump some pretty big 18 meters plus cliff jumps before, but this little 4 meter one, at night, in a RACING situation, NO WAYS, not even for our fearless captain! At least her sanity prevailed, and she jumped; admitting afterwards what a woessie she had been. Anyway, all's well that end's well, and at least Ryan and Gert got a 20 minute power nap in during all of that...

Having negotiated the kloof (and Nicky), we were off in search of CP 22 (Rangers hut), pretty simple, there's 2 paths through the valley to choose from, the only problem was which path to choose!!??? Yeah right, whatever. The events of the following 4 hours will not be retold in detail, as the language will offend sensitive readers. For those of you who did the Swazi Pro race, you'll know what I mean... For those of you who didn't, just imaging running face first into the biggest Lantana bushes you have ever seen, and doing that for almost 2 km's, moving at slower than 500 meters an hour... To say we did our fair share of bundu bashing and invasive exotic plant clearing would be a SERIOUS understatement... Swaziland government, expect an invoice from the Red Ants any time soon; we expect payment for our eradication of invasive Lantana bushes in the Malolotja Nature reserve! J

Well, on with the Red Ants story, the less said about the bund- bashing that night, the better! Having started the hike in 2nd place we arrived at CP 22 to find we were in 8th! We were however not too disappointed because 4th place Team Sterling Lite was only 30 minutes ahead of us, and we had taken an hour shut eye in the bush, when most teams hadn't.

Chasing hard we caught and passed Cyclelab KZN and Kinetic USN in the next hour, and were gaining on Sterling with every step. Approaching CP 23, we picked up the pace, and stormed in behind Sterling, slowing a little after that through the kloof to CP 24, as Nicky couldn't quite get her long legs over some of the smallish rocks in the kloof. We eventually passed Sterling at the Hydro Dam, putting their wetsuits on, whilst we tacked the icy dam (pun intended) water in our Hydro Gear tops.

It was at this point when all the commotion started, as we were greeted by a space blanket blocking our entrance into the kloof below the dam wall. We knew there must be something wrong, but Gert's sharp wit came to the fore, as he said, "O, there must be a Hippo in the kloof, if there is a space blanket here!!" Classic comment! (For those who don't know, or didn't listen, Darron said we should put up a space blanket on the river rafting leg if we had a close encounter with a Hippo, to warn teams behind us!). Having recovered from laughing ourselves silly at Gert's comment, we realized the enormity of the situation; there was something seriously wrong in the kloof.

As we traversed around the left of the kloof and over some seriously dodgy ladders, we were met by Craig Dutton and Mark le Roux, who explained the situation to us. Mark and Philip of Team Voel's McCain were stuck in the kloof, as the water flow in the kloof was far too high. With the severity of the situation, we realized that racing on was not an option, until something was done to get them out of there. We were assured that Darron was on his way, and would have a plan up his sleeve. No sooner said than done, Darron arrived, rallied up some climbing kit from the now 4 teams sitting above the kloof, and took some helping hands in the form of Ryno form Voel's McCain, Gert from the Red Ants and Clinton from Cyanosis to get Mark and Philip out of there. An hour later, and smiling faces appeared over the ridge, at least this story had a happy ending!

Being reunited with their team mates, and the race called to a halt, Mark, Philip and the other 5 or so teams who were all milling around at the kloof, put foot to dirt and marched the last 7km's into transition together. Along the way, Darron stopped the procession to thrash out a plan of action, considering the race was pretty much over, and Landrover now had a 7 hour lead on all of us. At this point no firm decision was made, it was however decided that the race would restart at Maguga Dam at 7 am the next morning with the river rafting leg. We were all still unsure at this point as to how the results would be calculated.

After arriving at Transition on one big group, we packed up and headed out to Transition 7 at Maguga Dam, to get some rest and hot food, before tackling the last three legs to the finish. Whilst all the commotion in the kloof was going on the day before, Landrover had raced ahead, and had only just made the Darkzone cut-off, by getting onto the river rafting at 2:30pm, to find a bone-dry river. Due to this, their race was also halted, which effectively meant the whole race was back together for the restart on the Monday morning.

Not knowing whether these last 3 legs would be counted in the overall race, or whether they were just "for fun", we were unsure if we should race this leg or chill out. But as we started paddling across Maguga dam in our Croc rafts, our competitive sprits took over, and we were dashing for glory!

The rafting was awesome; thankfully the Maguga Dam officials had released sufficient water overnight, to make the paddling an unforgettable experience! The race upfront was fast, with Landrover/USN, Tweets McCain and Cyclelab KZN taking an early lead. We had an uneventful yet adrenaline-pumping paddle, cautiously approaching most rapids, and thankfully not getting dumped too badly at any major rapids! Except just after OP6, where Nicky and I took an extended swim down a pretty large drop-off! But what's a rafting leg with out a swim???!! J Ryan and Gert also saw the bottom of their boat a couple of times! At least we didn't see any space blankets on this leg!

With that crazy paddle behind us, it was fast in and out of transition, as we were bearing down fast on Landrover/USN, Cyclelab and Tweets McCain. The hike was very fast paced, and just after CP 31 we caught Team Landrover moving up the kloof. Cyclelab and Tweets McCain (who were now down to 3 members) had got away, they were moving fast. We passed Landrover, and pushed the pace to CP 32, and onto transition. Landrover were taking strain, as John had started getting seriously sick. We ran into the last transition, with Landrover trailing a couple of minutes back. Our transition was fast and furious; we were in and out in minutes, grabbing some sandwiches and energy drinks before leaving on the last 65km bike to the finish.

We left transition ahead of Landrover; and thinking they were chasing us all the way, we pushed the pace on the bike towards CP 33 and 34. We were sad to hear that Landrover pulled out soon after leaving transition on their bikes, as John had now got seriously sick. The navigation on the bike was very straight forward, and as day turned to night, the finish was within touching distance.

We were very curious with the location of CP 38 (right on top of Mliba Mountain), all we were dreading was another fierce bundu- bashing session to the top of this koppie 10km's from the finish! Thank goodness that didn't happen, there was a beautiful cement track to the top! Dropping our bikes at CP 37, we marched furiously to the top of the mountain to clip 38 and return down to CP 37, doing the short trip in 29 minutes!

Once remounted it was only 10km's to good food, hot showers and warm beds! Having navigated flawlessly for the whole race, Gert and I were happy with the fact that the nav to the end was very straight forward (or so we thought...). Now this was a typical example of loosing concentration right at the finish. With only 3 km's to go, we missed a road, which branched off the left and continued straight on. Now, what made life a little more difficult was that there was ONLY ONE ROAD ON THE MAP, AND TWO ON THE GROUND!!!! Eish! Thank goodness it was not far down the road that we realized our mistake, and with the help of some very friendly locals on a tracker, they pointed us in the right direction! To complicate matters, I got a puncture (our team's first puncture all race), which I refused to fix, and promptly rode on a flat tyre for the last 2 km's.

Finally, 10 minutes later we were crossing the finish line at Panata Ranch in 3rd for the day, behind Cyclelab and Tweets McCain!! It was only at prize giving the next morning that Darron revealed the true results, having added up times of leg one, (before the incident with Mark and Philip in the kloof), to the time from "stage 2", the last 3 legs we had just completed.

With all calculations done, we ended the Swazi Extreme 250km "Stage" race in 2nd position, merely 2 hours behind a very strong Team Cyclelab KZN. Well done guys, you had a great race! In the end winners must be acknowledged, and as Lisa says, the greatest accomplishments in AR is to get all four members from start to finish, for the teams who didn't achieve that, I hope we'll see you next year!

Final words... Nicky, Gert and Ryan, thanks for making us one kick a** team! You guys rock, and it's always a pleasure racing with you! Last year we were 3rd, this year 2nd, next year? The odds are on our side for a win! J

To all our sponsors, Adventure Inc., Ram Mountaineering, Julbo Eyewear, Montrail shoes, Black Diamond, Buff, Body Glide, USN supplements and Bruce Reyneke cycles, thanks to all of you for your great products and awesome support, you are the guys that keep us motivated and keep us moving!!

To Darron, Anita and the rest of your "Team Organizer" from Swazi Trails, thanks again for the best AR event of the year. You guys do an amazing job! Thank you! Look out; the Ants will be back in 2008 to invade Swaziland again! «