Unchartered wins Double Moon

The Kinetic Double Moon 250km AR, sponsored by Salomon, engraved some great memories into not only my mind, but I am sure a lot of other adventure seekers’ minds too.

Lizelle and I were very excited when Alex Pope and Steven Erasmus agreed to join us for the race in the Freestate (Bethlehem, Fouriesburg and Clarens).  As this was the first time for all of us to race a long race together, we were all unsure of what to expect from the team’s cohesiveness.

A nice and early start at 5am Friday morning saw at least 58 headlamps taking off in different directions.  As Alex’s game is orienteering, we managed to hit all the OP’s in great time on the first hike leg.  The orienteering paddle also went really well and we managed to have a small lead when getting onto the first bike leg.

Since my heart rate averaged 180bpm on the first two legs I was close to a zero on the bike.  Alex was reading the map with Lizelle hooked on behind him and I was holding on to Steven to get me up the up hills.  We managed good time on this leg and arrived at Fouriesburg TA just ahead of the Salomon pair.

After a fairly quick transition we were off to the epic hike.  We made a minor mistake heading down stream to CP6 in the kloof.  We realized the mistake soon and turned around to go back up stream.  (A quick thank you to PS Hawkstone who also made this small error and retrieved Steven’s sunglasses from that section!)  Alex with map and compass in hand almost tiger lined us to both the remaining CPs and back to the abseil.  Before we started with AR you would barely get my wife up a chain ladder like that in the beginning of the hike, here she did even the abseil on the other side in good form!!

We had a slightly more relaxed transition before getting on the bikes for the last big bike leg.  However, once moving we tried to use as much of the daylight and only stopped again after dark on the Lesotho border road (it was a short stop as we did take note of the warning).  We were trying to be very careful not to miss the mountain pass as we were sharply warned to do.  We did over shoot it but fortunately Alex’s O-instincts warned him after 5min of going past the first turn-off.  We turned around and found the grassy turn up to the mountain pass.  By now I had my 2nd of 4 flat tires!  Not a single flat on any of the other bikes, just four of them on mine in a space of about 5km!  I felt so special.

After carrying on for a while up the pass we met up with Team Jabberwock .  Cobus was looking for the left turn to switch back up the mountain pass.  He and Alex brain stormed a bit and we decided to carry on, shortly after which we managed to find the turn up to the left.  What a relief!  The hike-a-bike mountain pass took quite some time.  The dark was a blessing on the one hand, not being able to see how high we still had to go, but on the other hand it also made coming down on the other side very slow going.

Reaching Clarens was a great relief and we had a nice slightly more relaxed transition.  We found out that Jabberwock was taking an hour’s nap at the guest house, but we felt strong and decided to take on the hike.  We left the guest house at about 2am and our team spirit was high.  We came to the split of the two hiking trails, and the sign to the right that said “Mountain Hike 2 hours” sort of made sense, however we trusted the sound judgment of our navigator and took the “Hiking trail 1 hour” to the left.  We wondered on cracking a few good jokes (which was probably some poor jokes but given the time of night we had a good laugh) only to later realise that we now had to cross the river/stream and find a way up over some daunting cliffs.  A few cliff hanging manoeuvres, some pushes and pulls and nervous moments we were at the top of the mountain where we wanted to be.  It was then that we saw Jabberwock coming strolling along the hiking trail to the right whistling and singing happy songs as they go along.  We opted to tell ourselves that we just wanted to take the uncharted route (pun intended).  This hike proved to be quite tough with allot of ups and downs.  We came down just in time to enjoy a beautiful sunrise over Clarens!

Our transitions became even more relaxed as we found out that we didn’t have another team hot on our heels, but every time we went out, we pushed and gave it our best.  We had a great and uneventful cycle to the dam for the last paddle.

It was with disappointment that we realised that none of us packed hats in Gear Box 2!  So we slapped on some sun cream and armed ourselves with Buffs to keep the sun off.  The highlight of the paddle must have been a ±4kg carp jumping out of the water and almost knocking Alex of the boat!  Wow was he surprised!  Here Steven became quite witty and chirpy.  I think it was his last attempt to try and stay awake.  He, in his sleepiness, showed very good form and paddled like a pro.  The paddle was also quite epic, going basically to all three corners of the dam.  However, it went much better than what we expected and we were off the water by half past 12.

With high spirits we were off back home, scraping up the last CPs.  Team Uncharted were the third team to cross the finish line at 14:15 Saturday afternoon after 33h15min of racing.  This gave us a Mixed Team win!  We are very happy and grateful for our result.

Our team worked together perfectly!  It was such a pleasure to race with these guys and I would do it again at the drop of a helmet.  Alex was spot on with his navigation and managed time lost due to errors to a minimum.  In addition he was such a strong work horse pulled much more than his own weight.  Steven was a champion and such a good race partner.  He remained positive throughout and worked really hard to contribute to the entire team’s progression.  My beautiful wife was as positive and determined as always!  Thank you Lizelle for showing so much vasbyt even when we could tell you were in some pain.

A very big thank you to Stephan and Heidi and all their marshals for a top class event!  All the effort you have done does not go unnoticed.  From the tented village (with a little chocolate!) to the very cool trophies and detailed race book made all the hard work evident.  Thank you very much to Salomon for sponsoring our great sport.  Very well done and thank you to all the other teams who also support AR!  You’re all legends.  I really want to express my sincere gratitude to my Lord and God who has not only given us the opportunity, ability and venue J to do this event, but has also protected us throughout, including in some hair-raising situations.  No adventure like knowing You!

Author: Wiehan van der Merwe | Team Uncharted | Kinetic Double Moon, 11-13 March 2011