Only a few weeks behind in my reporting now, but 3? weeks ago was Twalk. After skipping it last year was keen for another go this year. I bounced around a few teams and then some evolution went on and what came out of that was a so called “Dream team”. Our team consisted of Greig, Chris, Steve, Joe, Emily, Myself and Will.

As always with Twalk we began the race all dressed up, this year our theme was Green eggs and Ham. We were first to find the first control but this didn’t last long at all and we quickly started to struggle… after about half an hour we bailed on the second control, frustrated that “The Simpsons” our main competition had found it quickly and moved on already. It was some time before we caught them back up, then passed them. This didn’t last long and a see saw battle ensued at the front for second place. We very briefly got into the lead on the leg, but quickly lost it to the Central Otago contingent.

Leg two started off quite well, then quickly turned into a bit of a disaster when we couldn’t find 4 controls in a row… We hunted for quite sometime and lost a lot of ground in doing so as the Simpsons bailed on these ones pretty quickly. Eventually towards the end we gained some ground back and were ready for action on leg 3.

We had 40mins to chase on them and with a long road bash to begin with we quickly caught the Simpsons. A see-saw battle ensued for a while until they made a break on us, and proceeded to overshoot the next control much to our delight as we passed them by hunting in the wrong place. I was really to call it quits on this leg as my hip flexor was starting to play up. Somehow I was convinced to go out on leg 4… I suffered through the first few controls through the middle of the night, even contemplating going back at one point. Eventually as we battled through the rain and the night the end was beginning to become a reality. This leg became the break we needed to win the race and we went out on leg 5 with 3 and a half hours to go!

Eventually it was time to head home, we skipped a few of the last controls but we still collected a good proportion of controls and came home to take the win! The bus ride out was pretty exciting to say the least and I am glad I was asleep for most of it!