Although this race was on my radar, I was actually more keen to do the NZ Rogaine Champs down in Fiordland. When I got in touch with Tim, hoping that we could replicate our win in 2018, he was more keen to race two weeks later at the first edition and first “A1 World Cup Final” adventure race. The team was all set up ready to go so all I had to do was just jump in.

With the race scheduled to be up to 48hours long, it was necessary to get over and down to Franz Josef for briefing and registration mid afternoon on the Thursday before the race. There was not alot of time to spare in between packing and repacking at Tim’s place, then to the airport to collect Kym, and finally, Darfield to jump into Ollie’s truck. This all left us with a buffer of about 20mins  for the roughly 5 hour trip, just enough for one toilet stop in Kumara.

The briefing was all pretty straightforward with the frustrating fact that now we had to drive back 45minutes from where we had just been to drop our bikes at transition. Then 45mins back to Franz Josef and our accommodation…. well so we thought….unfortunately the booking was for Fox Glacier a further 25minutes south….whoops! A quick rejigging of our plans and Kym found us a hotel in town for a short 4.5 hour sleep.

3:30am the bus departed and it was another hour to the Whataroa start area. Shortly before 5am we were underway with a rogaine on an aerial photo. With one clip card and one map, Tim and I struggled a bit to communicate effectively in the dark and the chaos of Adventure Racers everywhere all around us. Eventually everything was ironed out and we escaped onto the main trail as the sky was starting to become lighter. We slotted into a chase pack or 3 teams just behind the top 3 teams.

At the swing bridge we were able to drop the packrafts and wetsuits which made quite a difference to pack weight. We could move faster, but it also meant that everyone was moving quite fast too. We opted early for the main track down beside the Perth River and only once it was necessary to climb did we jump onto the trap lines to the top. It was quite tricky to follow some of the trap line markers and especially at the junction there was a bit of hesitation. Once sorted out we continued up the steep climb section, about another 800m vertical. There was some very steep bits and plenty of branches to clamber over and around.

About 30mins into the hard graft of the climb there was a cry of pain coming from down below where I was. We all immediately stopped and turned to check what was going on. Kym had slipped on one of the branches and landed straight on to her ribs. Initial thoughts were that with that amount of pain they were likely broken… I thought to myself that this could be a short race for us. After a couple of minutes of resting it, Kym felt that maybe they were not broken and she could continue, and as we started think about to moving again Devold came past us. This might have also help inspire Kym and us to get moving again.

When we arrived at the bushline, the trap line sort of disappeared, and we were left with a real battle through what is affectionately known as “monkey scrub”. It was really not fun to push our way through and the teams just in front of us we could also see struggling a bit. It took something like 30mins to travel about 400m but after that point the scrub was a bit smaller and easier to climb through. There was a manned checkpoint at the rocky saddle. From the saddle we sadly had to climb a bit further along and then decided to cut down where it looked like a way to negotiate the bluffs. It was tight, but eventually it went. Much to our amusement (and probably the photographer too) the photographer that was with us on the tops, continued on the further ridge then cut down and got there before us.

Once in the basin, there was no time to muck around, I took the lead and we picked up the checkpoint, gaining us some ground over team Devold in the process. Next, the route took us down a river bed, with what should have been a trap line to follow at the very end, cutting back into the bush. If it did cut into the bush, we did not see it and along with team Kuhmo (which we collected on our way) ended up at the river junction. Not really where we wanted to be. This left us with a very sketchy scramble down some loose river gravels, then some boulder hoping to get back to the track-river junction where the checkpoint was 500m upstream.

That was the final checkpoint on the section, now it was just down and out for us. Sounds pretty simple but for Kym, and her broken rib it sounded very painful. There was a lot of branches to climb up over and around along with some steep pinches here and the there. Once the track flattened out a bit, we could see down to some river flats below. After some convincing by Tim, I conceded, and we dropped onto the flats and made good progress down them. Climbing back up onto the trap line seemed a little problematic. Soon enough, we got onto a good line that made sense and made solid progress. Some twisting and turning later, we had made it back to the swing bridge, ready for some white water action.

I was super glad I had my wetsuit to put on because that beautiful looking blue water looked very very cold. First set of rapids, Tim and I were sitting in water, the boat was so full we could not steer it at all. Ironically a lack of steerage probably lead to more water in the boat. We rushed to remove the tape to make it self bailing again and it was back into it. Supposedly, it was grade 2, I’m not denying it probably was for a whitewater boat, but in a double packraft there was some huge wave trains which possibly pushed it beyond G2? I got thoroughly soaked in the front! After passing under the hiway bridge I kept an eye out for a confluence as that was our get out point.

We passed what I thought was it, then had to convince Tim we needed to get out here. He was not confident and suggested we go even further downstream. From the river bed, I spotted what looked like a porta-loo and argued my point. Still moderately unconvinced we marched across the river flats and sure enough we hit the CP right near the portaloo…

Next part of this stage, we had to portage about 6km along a road. While it was very cold in the boats, it got very warm walking down the road on our wet suits. Just when it got almost unbearable it was time to get back into the boats. This stream was pretty easy going in comparison to the Whataroa. Now we were racing dusk as well as the approximately 5 teams in front.

As the sun was just setting we got out of the river to our bikes. It was very cold now, but good to put some dry gear on. Luck was not on our side here as between the 4 bikes we had 3 flat tyres…. almost seemed like sabotage! The most likely scenario seemed to be hot sun on a hot day which is not good for tyres.

We fixed the tyres, packed up and headed out in the twilight on our bikes. Progress was good until we got to the Dam. It looked like it should be easy to get across and onto a shortcut track, super straight forward. It was not and in the process someone fell in the water and got very cold as a result. We quickly decided on the alternative option to continue on the sealed road, straight forward but quite a lot further.

It didn’t seem to make too much difference in the end. We spent the rest of the evening going up and down the Kiwi roads in the Okarito forest collecting checkpoints. There were several out and backs and we managed to get a gauge on who we were chasing and who was chasing us.

By around midnight, we hit transition in Okarito itself. The next stage was a trek. We were lucky with our timing, and the tide was now out far enough we could walk down the coast line rather than the hill top route. Progress was slow, I was sleepy, very sleepy all of a sudden. It was chewing gum that got me out of that state in the end, and maybe some no-doz too. Potentially, we should have run along here, but no one in the team seemed to have the desire to drive it and that was that.

Towards the end of our long beach march we could see headlamps. These headlamps were not in the correct location and it appeared they were grid searching. We snuck in to the bush quickly picked up the checkpoint and we were away on a trap line. This section was all on traplines, in fact we were not allow off the traplines. This seems pretty straightforward, however it was dark and these were pretty wild traplines.

At one point we did make a poor route choice, going further on a more secure trapline when looking on the map but unfortunately for us it had suffered lots of windfall and slowed our progress considerably. At dawn we reached a point where everything started to make sense again and quickly picked up some checkpoints near a lake. It was near this lake we came across Team Devold again, our nemesis team. They had one team member sleeping at the track junction on an out an back when they finally caught us… not sure how above board that was…

Annoyingly for us, they were positive and very chatty, it took us quite some time to drop them, but eventually we broke free. The final ridge to the Lake Mapourika seemed to go on forever and when it came time to descend it was very steep. Our route was spot on as we hit the checkpoint spot on… apparently one of two teams of 4 to have done so so far…. Fear Youth dropped too early then cheated by collecting some of the lake controls out of order.

We knew now that the teams in front were not too far away, so that helped us get some air in the packrafts and on the water. This was too quickly for Tim as he misplaced some of his gear (inside the boat it turned out). He must have been a bit out of it as he tried to insist we go back to get it, which we ignored, then the steering was all out of wack as he was falling asleep.

The end of the lake signalled the end of the flat water now we were into some grade 3+ white water down the Okarito River. We were all warned about it being harder than the Whataroa, which technically it was, because even though it was less volume, it had more dangerous things to avoid. I was quite panicked going in here, I had very little confidence in Tim’s steering ability, based on the Whataroa and even just the lake paddle. The weight in the boat messed with the steering quite a bit too.

Anyway, the terrifying descent began, it was chaotic and I had no idea how we did not tip put as we were all over the place, backwards, forwards and even sideways down some rapids…. we portaged one rapid, which turned out to be wise as several team apparently fell out here. The last major obstacle however caught Tim a bit off guard. It was a bit stick poking out. We probably should have had the bow pointing out a bit more than it was, but Tim was steering and it was up to him to get the boat in the right place….we came it very close to it, sitting in the front I managed to avoid it. Tim was not so lucky and was collected and ejected from the boat. It was just as well I stayed in, as his life jacket was a bit loose on him and had ridden up. He could not get back in the boat so I had to tow him into the beach.

There was a 5 min interlude while he regathered his thoughts. I think we were fortunate team Devold behind us had a swim because I was certain they were going to catch us. It was pretty much all flat water from there on and thats were the tricky bit came in. The last checkpoint was located on the little side shoot off the main flow. Nathan made it sound very straight forward at the briefing, so how hard could it be… well, yes.. there was definitely at trick to it. I had the map with me, was working off the trees around and right when I thought it should a channel appeared on the left. Ollie and Kym were ahead and paddled right past it without a care in the world. I conferred with Tim, and again he said we should go further…. about 2 minutes further downstream and we arrived at the entrance of the estuary, definitely too far. We could see Fear Youth in the distance too, looking quite confused. Tim realised pretty quick our mistake and we turned around at high speed and returned to the channel. The race was on and we switched gears.

Quickly, we raced up stream collected the checkpoint and got out of there and into the channel with the outgoing tide. We hit the beach and I was surprised no one was really in a hurry. We even walked to with our gear to the TA when really we should have run.

As we were just about to leave TA Fear Youth turned up. Molly was raging a little bit and that quickened up the pace of everyone in the TA. We were first out on bikes, pretty confident that we would be able to stay ahead. There was some joking about the tracker, then the joking turned to real fear and I had to stop and check to be sure. This slowed the train a little but still we were not too worried. Then Ollie’s tyre was losing pressure, we carried on for a bit but eventually, not even that far from home we opted for a quick stop to inflate the tyre with a CO2 canister.

While we stopped, we looked back, in the distance a team was coming. Initially it looked like a 3 person 12 hour team… but as they got closer we realised it was Fear Youth. Collectively, our hearts sank a little, we had left to door slightly ajar and they had waltzed right on through it.

As they came past us there was a “oh man a puncture, that’s so unlucky” followed by Molly the motivator shouting “don’t stop and help them”. Essentially, telling her team this race was on.

Again, all four of us switched back on. Kym and Tim lead the charge, quickly we were back on the bikes and chasing hard. The final few km had some tight navigation, with 3 remaining controls. We all understood as a team without talking about it we had to take the initiative here, we needed to get to the front and take control.

So that’s what we did, first we fractured the bunch, messing them up a bit, then when we hit the single track, I boosted to the front. I rode like a man possessed, channelling Anton Cooper up to the control. I got there first, whipped out the control card punched and Tim came in, took charge of the nav while they fumbled about with getting their clip card out of their pack. Schooled them there!

One of the Fear Youth guys unfortunately had a huge stack on the grassy downhill, so we got a little gap to the next one, it was closed super quickly and they we back stuck to us like glue. At one point they got ahead, Tim stopped a little confused, then I found the way forward, and we almost got away completely. But wisely, on there part, they followed us again.

Last checkpoint, we arrived with a little gap, but I got confused, they punched in between me and then I was behind all their team and mine too. It was about 1km along this gravel track, then a 600m run to the finish.

I busted my guts to catch back up. I passed two of the fear youth dudes reasonably quickly then the remaining two were riding two abreast. I saw a gap and went for it. That gap closed quickly and I clashed handlebars. Miraculously, both of us stayed upright and kept riding. Just as the track ran out I had caught back my team!

Apparently Kym had asked Tim if they should wait for me before they started running, but Tim said with a wry smile, don’t worry about Tane, he’ll catch up!

The sprint to the finish was chaotic, the bikes got dumped and we all just started sprinting in a general direction where we guessed the finish was. In bike shoes, still with packs and helmets on we sprinted. It was a real battle, where no one knew who was really going to win. They had youth on their side, we had experience….and eventually that pulled us through, Tim instructed Kym to hold onto my pack, I held onto the back of Ollie’s and Tim drew the boys away from Molly by running out in front. The train paid off and we dug deep for those final seconds to cross across the line about 1 second ahead to take 3rd place. Such a brutal finish, but very satisfying to be on the right side of it!

It was a real good hit out before Godzone, but plenty of things to work on. Our plan was to be conservative, but probably was a bit too conservative and then never really seemed to click into “race” mode until that last hour or so with the neck and neck racing.