ARWC Nettski's Report

Finally I got my act together to right a race report for the AR world Champs in Tasmania.


Firstly I just want to Thank all of you for the your support enthusiasm it was and still is amazing I still get asked about the race THANK YOU SO SO MUCH for showing such interested.

Its quite hard to right a race report for such a long race without writing a journal so I'm just going to take out one incident which will always stick in my mind, but before that I better write a bit about what Tasmania looks like. It is beautiful and wild the Forests are lush and green with ferns taller than Nicolas which says quite a lot and mosses covering every fallen tree so its rich in different greens but not thick as a jungle, more like our Garden Route forest with gum trees as thick as our yellow woods.

The coast is rough and wild like our own Robberg with very similar vegetation which scratches you to shredders ala fynbos!! The weather well that can get freezing which we experienced on the long hike wind, snow and rain all together but luckily for the rest of the race we had pretty good weather. Me! well considering my build up for this race 2 weeks of panic attack training and not such a good base due to wedding fever, one could say I was well rested and nicely fed (vino,vino and dinning out). I was thou pleasantly surprised that I survived, still could smile and could have carried on except for my swollen sore shines which where literally a pain.


At the end of the report which is beginning to look like a book I will write the distances we covered which Nicolas send to me since I had no idea and people kept on asking me. All I can say it looks damn long and impressive cant believe we did that. And since it looks so impressive I have to add that to the report also it makes me look very very hardcore.

Okay finally to the incident that will stick with me for ever:

It was on our last hike along the coast which we started just before night time, the sleep monster was attacking me big time and to me it felt like we where wondering around in circles around this headland. Every time Nic took a look at the map Netski dropped to the ground hoping for a quick zzzzzz time well it never lasted very long. We got to the check point which to me looked like a jetty at a lake since it was dark now. During this time the wind picked up considerably and it was pretty chilly needless to say it started to bucket down but lucky for us there was a public toilet right next to the jetty. Sadly to say this is where we settled for the chilly night and the worst was the wall didn't even reach all the way to the ground more like a prefab wall about a foot above the ground. Needless to say the rain was coming in so we ended up pushing our backpack against the wall and leaning against them to stop the rain and wind. John was hugging the toilet with his emergency blanket while I squashed between Nic and Nathan needless to say the sleep was not very good. Between the shivering and here and there a bit of shut eye, daylight came with the rain having stopped but the wind was still howling, it was freezing.

The boys decided to use their emergency blanket as a buffer between their cloths and skin, so there they where ripping the emergency blankets into strips and stuffing them into their pants. John looked the best since he was wearing compression socks and cycling tights. The silver emergency blanket was sticking out of the socks and out of his pants he either looked like a candy wrapped badly in foil or a robot I couldn't quite make up my mind. But the best was when the boys started to walk this funny zizzzhed zizzed noise was coming from the "aliens" even thou the situation was pretty grim I had to laugh and it still makes me laugh. But we made it to the end in a amazing 8th place with never having trained or raced together before, with 2 people who didn't have this race in their yearly goal John who got asked 6 weeks before and me 2 weeks considering how much all the other teams train for this I was very very chuffed.

For some on course pics go to
https://picasaweb.google.com/nchlsmldr/2011Tasmania?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Here is the course info:

9am start

1) 17km sea kayak - 2.5 hours, including transition

2) 20km trek through the Dial Mountain Range - 4.5 hours

3) 20km mtb to Gunns Plains Cave - 1 hour

4) 1 hour of caving.

5) 50km mtb to Leven Canyon - 4.5 hours (arrived at 10pm)

6) 60km of mountain trekking and kloofing down past Reynolds Falls and

the Vale River - 20 hours

7) 12km rafting on Lake Mackintosh in inflatable - 3 hours

8) 20km kayaking on Lake Mackintosh and Lake Rose - 5.5 hours

- We slept 2 hours in transition in Tullah until dawn

9) 105km mtb past Montezuma Falls to Stahan (Mid camp) - 10 hours

- We slept 3 to 4 hours in transition in Stahan, 6 hour stop. Left mid

camp at 21h45

10) 65km beach and fynbos hike to Granville Harbour - 19 hours

11) 150km mtb past Waratah to the Arthur River - 23 hours

- We slept 2 hours in tent alongside the road before the ferry crossing

12) 75km kayak & 12km trekking down Arthur River to Kununnah Bridge -

took us from 18h30 till 17h30 the next day with 11 hour darkzone

- We slept 7 hours during dark zone next to Arthur River. Got 45 mins

down river before darkzone. Actual kayaking time was 10 hours.

13) 70km mtb to the Rocky Cape - 5 hours

14) 25km coasteering to Boat Harbour - 10 hours in total from midnight

to 10am.

- We slept 2.5 hours in toilet near Jetty on the Rocky Cape

15) 35km mtb to the finish in Burnie - 2 hours.

- Finished just before midday.