Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, a MATES man had the wonderfully crazy idea to start adventure racing. He found 3 other willing MATES and chose Expedition Africa – the longest, toughest one of the lot as their virgin trip. Yes, children, he was a little bit crazy… This is their story in their own words.
Brave the cold with Lisa’s WINTER METROGAINE – an urban point-score navigation event. Enter as an individual or pair. You will receive a full-colour A3 street map on which checkpoints are marked. A cluesheet will guide you to the control locations.
Team Dewpoint were super excited for Expedition Africa this year, Kelly and I were doing our second 500km expedition AR after completing Bull in 2008 and it would be the first 500km for Kev and Mark. Kelly (who is South African but plies her trade in Aus) flew out for the race and spent a couple of days with us in Joburg getting all her gear together.
Leaving Johannesburg late on Friday afternoon, we practiced sleep deprivation by driving through the night, arriving at Onrus caravan park around 11:00 on Saturday morning.
Uncharted’s Expedition Africa was a journey. The journey to halfway had us in a lot of pain and wondering how another 250km was possible. The journey home showed us what we were capable of, how much the team aspect counts, and how to hang in there.
Saturday saw the team packing the trailer in the Crags as the rain bucketed down for the first time in months. We were all quietly praying that this weather would not follow us on our trip to Onrus on the Cape south coast where we were due to start the 500km African Expedition Adventure Race two days later.
Team Merrell Adventure Addicts crossed the finish line at Expedition Africa in first place, almost three hours ahead of Team Cyanosis, after 61 hours of racing. This race report has been written by the team, with reports by Graham ‘Tweet’ Bird, Tatum ‘Hobbit’ Prins, Hanno ‘Smelly’ Smit and Donovan ‘Tiny’ Sims.
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