Otway Ranges, Australia
28 April - 2 May, 2009
The 2009 Keen adventure race “A journey through the Otways” consisted of 4 stages held over 5 days on the Great Ocean Road coastline and the Otway ranges west of Melbourne. This was a change from the original course which was to be held at Wilsons Promontory north east of Melbourne. Bushfires had swept through the “Prom” destroying much of the forest and tracks and necessitating the change of location for the race. Event director John Jacoby promised an equally stunning and enjoyable course on the Great Ocean Rd. The event would begin on Tuesday afternoon with a 3 hour prologue from Wye River. On Wednesday 10 hours of racing would take us west from Wye River to Aire River. The race headed back east on Thursday and right through the night to finish 26 hours later at Eastern Beach near Lorne. A final 6 hour stage on Saturday based around Angelsea completed the event.
The race is for teams of two so as with last year we split our usual OrionHealth.com team so that I would race with Anna in the mixed pairs division and Brent and Wayne would race together in the mens pairs category. Last year Anna and I won the mixed category and placed 2nd overall so we were looking for an equally good result and secretly eyeing up the overall win. Wayne and Brent were back with a point to prove after not finishing the 2008 event.
On arriving in Melbourne I stayed to catch up with some friends and pick up the surf ski that Anna and I would use while Anna, Brent, Wayne and our support crew Roy (Brent’s dad) carried on to Wye River. My drive to Wye River was an adventure in itself. Gale winds and an 8 metre long boat don’t mix well and it was a white knuckle drive down from Melbourne as the winds threatened to rip the ski from the roof. After 3 retying stops, two flattened kayak cradles and a whole bunch of stressing I finally made it to Wye River and caught up with the others. It wasn’t quite the sunny warm beach we had envisioned. Rain squalls and a temperature of about 5 degrees made being out and about reasonably unpleasant and we all were hoping for a break in the weather before the race start.
The day before the race Wayne and Brent’s Ski arrived and we had some exciting moments practicing paddling them out through the surf. Many of the other teams were taking the opportunity to have a go and there was a good crowd gathered in the surf club being thoroughly entertained as teams took on the waves – some successfully, the more entertaining ones being not so successful. Despite the carnage the only damage was a broken rudder by a team practicing in the river before taking on the surf break.
Tuesday morning we all gathered at the surf club for the race briefing and to get the maps. We were given most of the first three stages although planning stage two and three could wait till the evening. The immediate task was to plan the prologue which would start in a couple of hours time. We had a foot rogaine where we needed to collect 9 out of 10 available checkpoints, this could be done before and/or after a 6km kayak down the coast. Once that was done there were two checkpoints to get on the mountain bikes and to finish we had to paddle out through the break and back on surfboards with a three minute bonus for each team mate that could stand up for at least 4 seconds.
We decided there was no point in adding an extra transition so along with most teams we started with the kayaking. We got off to a good start, punching through some big waves and were soon making our way down the coast with Wayne and Brent right with us. The four of us got a small break early on the run but were caught up when we wasted some time looking for the first checkpoint in a small creek. So three teams were together at the third CP, us, Wayne and Brent and the “City Bike Desperados Wannabe Dudes” (Richard Mountstephens and Hugh Stodart who I’ll refer to as the “Dudes”). Here we had to decide whether to take a shorter steeper route or a longer flatter way around which was mostly on tracks. Anna and I went for the direct option while Wayne and Brent opted to go around. Meanwhile the Dudes followed Anna and I up the hill. We dropped the Dudes on the downhill and rounded up the rest of the CP’s only having a little trouble when I led us on a “shortcut” through a thick blackberry patch. It didn’t look too far across so with Anna graciously letting me lead the way we crashed through that to get the last CP and return to the surf club. Onto the bikes we started up a steep hill which went from seal to gravel to sticky clay. With the track unrideable and the clay starting to weigh things down we hoisted the bikes before it got too bad and carried them to the top. Checkpoints collected we could ride once more and had a fantastic greasy slide back to the bottom of the hill and the surf club where only the surfing challenge remained.
Out through the waves and around a bouy, then I had to try not to embarrass myself next to Anna who lives at the beach and surfs like a pro. My first wave petered out after a few seconds and was disallowed although the next one was a goodie and took me right to the beach. After crossing the line we decided that was too much fun so headed out for another surf while the next teams started to finish. The “Keen Torqers” (Luke Haines and Grant Suckling) were 2nd in, 16 minutes behind while Brent and Wayne were 40 minutes back in 6th after their flat track didn’t exist and they broke a chain on the mountain bike.
With a lot to do that evening we didn’t surf too long and were soon back in our cabin planning our route and logistics for the next two stages. Technically an unsupported race, the organisers would move our bikes, kayaks and gear boxes around for us while we raced. Part of the challenge is organising what gear and food needs to go into which box so that it’s there when we need it and we don’t turn up to a bike stage and find that our bike shoes are in another box somewhere. Even though it was an unsupported race, having Roy there was a huge help as he could assist before and after each days racing and meant that we could just concentrate on the race.
Stage two started from Wye river with a coasteering run (the same way we had kayaked the in the prologue). Although it was a chilly morning we soon warmed up jumping and scrambling over the rocks. We then carried on Kayaking down the coast for about 18km with a bit of drama mid way where we had to land on the beach to collect a checkpoint. Not as elegant as our practice runs we were caught by a wave and tipped in to the drink. To make matters worse Brent and Wayne also tipped in and were on a collision course with us. And to top it all off the sandy beach we thought we were landing on was littered with rocks. Somehow both us and the boat came through unscathed, much to our relief and to that of Rob Preston who was watching from shore and whose boat it was that we were borrowing. Putting that drama behind us we carried on and finished the kayak stage without further problems.
Biking out of transition we were with Brent and Wayne again but had a bit of a gap on the chasing teams. The boys got away from us on the road but we caught up again in the forest and got in front when the tracks got muddy so that we had a 4 minute lead going into transition. The next trek however was a good leveller with a lot of off track navigation through bush choked with the Australian version of bush lawyer. Not as nasty but twice as thick. Hearing the boys behind us we decided we’d be faster and less likely to make navigation errors if we travelled together so we waited for them to catch up and then moved on. An added advantage in this was that each person didn’t have to spend so much time at the front where they inevitably would get cut up at a much faster rate than those following. Emerging from the forest looking like we’d been mauled by alley cats we ran on to the final transition for the day and onto our skis for a 5km river paddle split by a small portage. In our haste to get to the end we overshot the best portage spot and ended up pushing through about 400metres of tall reeds in frigid water. Emerging from the reeds first Anna and I collected the last CP raced off to the finish as the sun was setting , just holding off the boys by about a minute. 10 minutes later the Dudes arrived having closed in on us a bit at the end due to our battle with the reeds.
Overall Anna and I were holding on to a 40 minute lead over the boys who had moved into 2nd. The Dudes were just behind them and the Keen Torqers were next another 15 minutes or so back. This night at Aire River we were camping. The long stage was up next so we had plenty to do cleaning bikes and organising gear before we could get some sleep. Fortunately hot food was on hand from the noodle-guy who must now be the wealthiest noodle-guy in Victoria (nothing like a lack of competition to drive up prices). Still, it was better than cold soup in a can so we weren’t complaining too much.
We awoke to a heavy frost and ice on our gear boxes after what we were subsequently told was the coldest night in Victoria in recorded history. After bacon and egg sandwiches from the breakfast guy (who is probably almost as wealthy as the noodle guy) we readied ourselves for the start and tried to warm up as the sun started to peek over the top of the hills. First up we were treated to a stunning coastal run along the beach and around the coastline beneath the Cape Otway lighthouse. After getting the 2nd checkpoint I decided the coast was getting a bit rough and slow so we opted to climb up the near vertical cliff to get on to the road. At first it looked like we may have made a mistake as at the top of the cliff we were confronted by thick brambles and no road. Figuring (hoping) that the road couldn’t be too far away we started crawling underneath and sure enough it soon opened up so that we could get on to the road. It seemed we had made a good choice as we were first to the kayaks and held that lead as we transitioned on to the monster bike/orienteering leg that would take us the next 14 hours to get through. The ride could be fairly accurately described as hills, big hills and some more hills that made the previous ones seem small. A few checkpoints involved an ‘out and back’ so we got to see the teams coming behind us and could see that we were holding about a 20 minute lead over Keen Torqers while the Dudes and the boys had dropped about as far back again. Fortunately there were a few breaks to the hills. Some fantastic singletrack riding on the purpose built trails at Forest kept us entertained as the sun set and an orienteering stage mid way kept the brain working. For the orienteering we had to juggle three maps of the same area; an aerial photo, a topographical map and a mountain bike trail map which each showed just a few of the checkpoints and had to be cross-referenced while on the run in order to pick out the best route. Apart from me slipping on a weir and falling into the river we completed this pretty well in the fastest time of any team and finished just in time to see Brent and Wayne arriving. They had dropped back a bit and were looking fairly stuffed – then again, we probably were too. The ride then went up the biggest hill yet before dropping back down a greasy clay track which took us to what looked like a short trek section to get 4 checkpoints. By this stage we were well over our estimated time and were running out of food. We only had 2 energy gels and a mini snickers bar left between us and to make matters worse the trek was much slower than anticipated, the tracks were so faint and overgrown that we struggled to keep to them and could only travel about half as fast as we had expected. After nearly 3 hours and about two thirds of the way around we saw the Dudes and the boys coming the other way. Assuming they were going a similar pace to us that put us about 90 minutes in front although where the Keen Torqers were we had no idea. Finally back on the bikes it didn’t look too far to the end until I had a closer look at the map and saw what was coming up. After about half an hour of pushing up a steep clay track we finally only had downhill to go and we could start to look forward to leaving the bikes behind.
Our first thought on getting to transition was food and we ripped into cans of Watties “Big Eats”, Ems Power Cookies and jelly snakes. Hunger taken care of we packed up our bikes and headed out onto the 2nd to last stage. It was 4am and we were not allowed to start the final kayak until 9am so we had 5 hours on foot to gather as many checkpoints as we could. The original route I had pencilled in was too ambitious given we were later than expected so as we ran to the first checkpoint I tried to come up with a revised plan that would net us as many checkpoints as possible in the time we had. In the end it worked out fairly well. Apart from missing one checkpoint that we should have gotten, we seemed to take a fairly efficient route and arrived at transition at three minutes to 9, transitioned to kayak gear and set off chasing those who started bang on 9am. Although we were not first across the line, the extra checkpoints that we had gotten put us an hour and a half in front of the next team, the Keen Torqers. Unfortunately for the Dudes and the boys a wrong turn near the end of the bike ride cost them dearly and they were an hour and a half further back again.
Overall this meant that we now had a nearly unassailable two and a half hour lead over Keen Torqers who were in turn an hour in front of the Dudes with Brent and Wayne a further 6 minutes adrift.
The final stage was based in and around Angelsea. A fun orienteering section started things off which included some high ropes and archery in order to get some of the checkpoints. Following that was a great mountain bike section on some schweet (their word) single track where all the navigation was done with pace notes. E.g. follow track for 640m, turn left onto gravel road, follow for 400m etc. Keen Torqers were pulling away in front while at the end of the ride the Dudes and the boys were neck and neck. Brent and Wayne had to make up 6 minutes to get third place. On the next coasteering run Anna and I decided to skip a couple of optional checkpoints. This would cost us about 25 minutes in overall time however we felt that we could easily afford that and we were keen to get to the finish line. Only a 15km kayak remained and we cut that out fairly quickly with the finish line in sight. As we approached the beach a big wave started to peak up behind us. Usually I would have let it go and paddled in behind it but I thought “what the heck, its the finish”. So we put in an effort and caught the wave. We had a great surf half way to the beach, then as could be predicted the wave broke and tumbled us out of the ski. Not the most elegant way to end, but definitely fun! We gathered ourselves and the boat and jogged through the finish tape. For the first time in the race we hadn’t won the stage but we had won the race, winning not just our mixed division but beating all the mens teams and so winning the overall prize as well.
After just over 45 hours of racing we were clear winners, almost 2 hours ahead of Keen Torqers. The Dudes were third, fourth was another mixed team, Team Teva/Mountain Designs of Gary Sutherland and Brit Caling and rounding out the top 5 was another Kiwi mixed team, Team ‘One Night Stand’ of Liam Drew and Rachel Ockelford.
Unfortunately for Wayne and Brent they had to withdraw almost within sight of the finish. Severe tendonitis in Wayne’s Ankle prevented them from finishing the coasteering stage. A disappointing way to end the race after having been vying for a podium spot. Perhaps 3rd time lucky next year?
