Some say that getting all members of your team to the Geoquest destination is the first major milestone in the Geo journey. Well for team BroCann (Brothers Andy, Lukas, Mick, and cousin Steve Wallis), it was certainly a relief having the original 4 team members and support crew all present at Crescent Head on the Thursday afternoon for our first Geo. It had been a nervous week beforehand looking after a wife with the flu, and my son with tonsillitis. I have never gargled so much salt water in my life!
We had a minor drama Thursday afternoon when Lukas went to unpack his car, and saw oil all up the back of his car and over his bike. For some reason, it seemed to be concentrated all over his brakes. A blown rear diff seal and 800km of highway driving from the Sunny Coast will do this. The pads were saturated in oil, and with no spare pads, we emptied the local chemist of their alcohol wipes just before closing time. A thorough clean of the brakes left it with about 80% stopping power, which would have to do.
Our main goal was to finish the race with all 4 team members, while our stretched target was to finish in the top 50%. Being our first Geo, the unknown factor really limited us setting anything more specific. Even though the line up also included some really talented teams, our team had all put in a good set of training for the last 5 months so it was now just a matter of being tough in the mind and seeing where that got us.
The Friday before the race seem to drag on forever, and we were all just keen to race. We picked up the Kayaks we had hired from Jared in the morning and took them for a
quick ocean paddle to make sure everything was adjusted ok. This was Mick’s first time in a Mirage 730, and he wanted to make sure he could do a deep water re-entry. A near drowning in his first attempt did not do his confidence much good. He had some real trouble getting his skirt off when he was upside down, however the next few attempts got easier. We paddled back in enjoying the small 1ft swell, knowing well that the weather was forecast to change dramatically before the race started. The forecast was 20-25knot winds, with a 1.6m swell. A short race into shore between our 2 crafts saw us paddle over a tiny swell, which ended up turning us on our side and tipping us over. Hmmmm, can’t wait until we get into the real weather I thought. Gotta remember not to catch a wave into shore! This ‘planned’ capsize helped us to get some extra manual bilge pump practice.
Mandatory checks and competency checks went well, and we got our maps around 3:30. We were told at this point that if the wind was over 17knots, the ocean kayak would be cancelled, and replaced with a MTB. This was disappointing as we had actually done a bit of ocean paddling training. Planning went well, and we got to bed around 9:30pm.
We met on Saturday Morning at 7:15am were we found a very tired Steve and Mick. Steve was staying at the caravan park, and some boys arrived on Friday night for a buck’s night. They partied until 4am, as did Micks new neighbors. Lukas suggested to treat the extra night sleep deprivation as XPD training. We arrived at the starting point after a brief scare thinking that the control card was in the hand out bag back at the unit, as I hadn’t checked though the bag. We decided not to get caught up in the initial start and found ourselves at the rear of the pack. After letting the chaos clear a little, we then put the
foot down and caught up to the lead group. The first ride went well, and we were glad to get onto some hardpack after a slog through the soft sand. We arrived into the first TA in first place (all placing in this blog refer to the male category) which was a pleasant surprise, and this motivated us for a quick transition. Lukas and I had the swim/run, and Mick and Steve went off on the longer run. The swim actually was quite
nice, and was much warmer than we expected. The swim length had also been reduced from 800 m to 400m, which meant that Lukas and I would have the easier of the 2 split legs.
We completed the swim without any issue, changed into our running gear and took off around Hat Head. The scenery was spectacular, and we were making good time. After getting the first CP, we decided to bush bash up the hill to get to save on an out and back. The terrain started off ok, but soon turned to thick lantana. We followed a few kangaroos through some thick scrub and got to about 10 meters from the CP at the top. We could see the CP, but that last few meters seemed to take forever. The bush bash made us up a few places, however we were pretty scratched up. We got the next CP ok, and headed back to the TA, were we had to wait for Mick and Steve to arrive. It was nice sitting on the beach, but we were getting anxious after waiting for 30 minutes. The boys arrived, so we were good to go. Another quick transition onto the bikes, and we were off.
The next leg was a slog through soft sandy tracks, which saw a couple of minor offs. There had been no issues with the navigation at this point, and we were all feeling good. The final bit of tarmac to Smokey Cape lighthouse felt amazing after the soft sand tracks, even though it was uphill.
We arrived at the TA at 12:30 to the taste of some ham sandwiches and cold coke. Wow, how can a ham sandwich taste so good! We were still leading the male category by about 5 minutes. We made our first nav error here, and headed down a track heading to the beach instead of through the headland. Steve picked up on this early, which was nice, as it limited the amount of uphill backtracking. We starting passing some of the half course races here which was encouraging, and rounded the headland to the jail before the beach run to South West Rocks. It was here that team DASH passed us taking the lead in the male category. I was feeling a little sick, so was on the tow on the beach run. I have only recently become a user of a tow rope, as I didn’t think they would make much difference. How wrong was I. Both the bike and run tow systems are now a mandatory piece of my AR kit. We saw DASH head up along the beach thinking that they had missed the turn off over the bridge, only to find that we had actually taken the longer way, as the rocks were crossable due to the tide. The orienteering leg was pretty basic, and saw us leaving this in 2nd place, 9 minutes behind DASH. We had packed a lot of gear in this leg, as the next few legs would be unsupported. We put the hammer down on the bikes to the pack rafting section.
Our rafts were up quick thanks to the electric pump, and we
were soon on the river. Although the rafts went up quick, they
were quite slow on the river. Paddling with our arms just
didn’t seem to have enough propulsion against the tide and
wind. We had 2 people on a single mattress x 2, and 4 bikes
on a double mattress. We did some mid river reorganizing
and made it to the other side ok. It’s good that we are family,
as we got pretty close on those air beds. The sun was going
down, and it was now cold. Mick had left some gear back at
the TA, so he was now in his raincoat for some extra warmth.
We found that the best way to get warm was to go fast, so this
we did. Our bike legs throughout the whole race were our
strongest. Lukas was feeling the extra weight a bit, as he had most of the rafting gear in his pack. The extra 6kg was the ‘teams’ way of bringing him back to an equal playing field with the rest of the team. We made up 35 minutes on this leg, and arrived for the first Rogaine at 5:56pm. This had us back in first place with an 18 minute buffer over second place(DASH), and 1 hour over third place (SA Ambulance).
The first Rogaine leg required us to get 6 of 7 checkpoints. We have found on many occasions that Rogaine’s are heavily influenced by confidence. If you nail the first few checkpoints, it really builds the confidence and helps you on your way. Unfortunately, we still had not found our first CP after 1 hour. We decided to skip this CP (V) and get the other 6, which unfortunately meant we had to go out and collect the far CP’s. Steve’s navigation to the rest of the CP’s went well, even after slipping in the creek and whacking his head on a rock. The food was starting to affect Lukas’s bowels, and it was not safe to trek up a hill behind him unless you were after some extra nutrition that resembled a cross between road kill and broccoli. Although we got the rest ok, it meant that a 4hr Rogaine turned into a 6 hr Rogaine. This had a compounding effect, as it also meant we ran out of water, and had to do a creek fill. I was feeling it here, and had stomach issues, so was not eating much. We saw Tiger Black on our way back to TA after collecting our 6th CP, and they also looked like they were doing it tough. We were very happy to finish this leg, however it was now midnight and we were now 1 hour behind both teams SA Ambulance and DASH. The official Geo Blog read “the wheels fell off for team Brocann, who had a shocker navigating at night, and have now dropped from 1st to 3rd, with SA Ambulance taking a narrow lead”.
It was good to get back on the bikes, even though our butts were now pretty sore. The extra weight from the raft gear definitely made a difference going up those hills, however there were a lot of people now walking up the hills, so it was nice to pass some people again. After a big uphill to start, the rest was pretty much downhill which was nice. We were flying down a dirt road, when I heard a yell, followed by the words ‘drop’. I swerved to the left and missed a massive drop, which Lukas and Steve had
gone over and nailed! Nothing like a drop at 50kmph to wake you up! We again were greeted with some smooth rolling tarmac to Scott’s head, so we put the hammer down and arrived at 1:37am. We made up 28minutes on the leading teams, and were now only trailing second place by 6 minutes.
This TA saw our first hot food which was good. My stomach was playing up, but I ate anyway as we still had a long way to go. It was after this TA that saw the other 3 guys starting to have stomach issues as well. I assured them that it wasn’t due to my precooked spag bol.
We were now on our first Kayak, and it was nice to turn the lights off and paddle under the clear skies on the Nambucca river. We were so glad that it wasn’t raining as forecast. We found the portage area fine, and did the 2km portage to the other side. The next part of the kayak was interested due to the hundreds of fish jumping in the river. We got smashed by fish hitting our kayak, paddles and bodies. It was worse when we put our lights on, so we had to paddle in the dark just waiting for those fish to hit you. Definitely a memorable experience. Steve even had a fish land in the kayak!
We arrived at the next TA at 4:20am. Man was it cold! We were all feeling a bit ill at this stage. We had lost 30 minutes to the other teams, and were now 1 hour behind them. This was our longest transition by far, partly due to us knowing that we would be unsupported for up to 12 hours. Steve was pretty cold in his short skins and was keen to start riding. I packed some extra food, just hoping that I would not need it all. I also ate some dry bread here, which turned out to be awesome, and saw the start of me not feeling ill in the stomach. I will be adding dry bread to the list of food items I take on a long race. Our route choice here was not the shortest, but had us bypassing some of the hilly areas. Steve was starting to feel worse in the stomach, as were Mick and Lukas. There were only about 3 big climbs in our route choice, but it sure did take us a long time. We only had issues with 1 CP on the bike, which saw us searching for 30 minutes. We ended up bush bashing to a creek, and then hike a biking up are steep 50m climb. We found the remaining CP, and headed to the next TA which was the Rogaine/archery. We reached the top of the final big climb to see a team in trouble. We had seen them out on the course a few times, with one of their members hurling. I stopped to give them some anti-nausea medication, only to look up and see Steve also heaving up. We drugged him up, but he was pretty bad, so he hoped on the bike tow (thanks Mick), and I took over the nav. We go to the next TA at 11am and were in 3rd place, 2 hours behind first place.
Steve was in a low, and could now only walk. Mick and Lukas had upset stomachs, however I was actually feeling good now. Thank God for dry bread! I was doing the Nav, and we took off down the road. I decided to head down the hill a little early and follow the creek down to the CP, however we did not find it. We searched for a while, and decided to go back up to the road and attach it from a different point. The second
attack also proved fruitless. Oh no, it was a case of the first rogaine all over again, however this time we had to find it, as the map to the next CP was on the first CP. I could tell the guys were happy to do all the extra hill repeats by the looks on their faces, however it wasn’t until I told them we were going back to the start that I heard the first groan. I offered the Nav to any takers, but as there were none, we headed back up to the start. The case of the first Rogaine CP strikes again. This time I paced out the distances and we found the CP no problems. It was hear that we saw Tiger Black again, and Trev gave some encouragement by saying ‘don’t give up’!
Finding the CP gave me a new leash of life, and I quickly took a bearing to the next CP. We smashed up a hill to the road, and as the others came up, I rechecked the map. Uh Oh, I just realized that when I took the bearing I had the map upside down. Guess those hill repeats in training were really paying off! My confidence took a big hit, and had to apologize to the team. They took it well externally, however I was glad I was not a mind reader! Back down the hill and up the other side we went. Things were looking good to the 3rd CP, and we were all looking forward to finishing this rogaine in daylight. We followed a spur down a hill to a creek, and went up about 200m. It seemed too far, so Lukas went up another 70 and came back empty handed. My nav confidence was at an all time low, and again offered it to anyone else but no takers! I was sure we were in the right place, and after some more looking, decided to trek back up the spur to the main road, and attack from a different angle.
It was now 3:30pm. We were running low on water and considered our battery life for the remaining legs. We had planned to have finished this leg and the next 2 by now. We checked out our battery life and made a call to HQ to see what the penalty would be to have some new batteries brought out, as we still had 2 CP to get, plus a bike leg and raft leg to go. Louise said that next Mountain bike was easy, and so we should be ok, so we pressed on. Steve was feeling a little better now, so I happily handed the Nav back to him. We came down a different approach, and hit the same area we were in before. We continued up the same creek and found the CP. We had gone 20m too short the first time! Ahhhhhh! We decided to take the longer but easier nav choice for the 3rd CP, to build some confidence back up. This took about 45 minutes, as we were still just walking due to the guys feeling sick still. We got the third CP with about 30 minutes of light left. We took a team vote to take the short but risky route option to the 4th CP instead of the long and easy. We took a bearing and through the bush we went thinking it would only take about 15 minutes. By the time it got dark, we knew we were lost. We walked around for ages, but in the end took a safety bearing to the nearest main road. This seemed to go on for every and at one stage I had to check to make sure the map was not upside down when we took the safety bearing. The
bearing was good, and we hit the main road. We got our bearings, and realized we were only 250m from the 4th CP, however we took a vote to skip it as were now out of water and had limited battery life. In hindsight we should have gone and got it, as it turned out to be a 3 hour penalty, however at the time the thought of going back into the bush did not appeal to any of us. We arrived back at the TA very, very glad to be leaving that rogaine. It had smashed us, then re-smashed us. The slow estimate for this leg was 4 hours, however it had taken us 8. We left this TA a beaten, but still keen to finish the race. We had now been without support for 15 hours.
The bike leg always seemed to pick up our confidence, and we found ourselves flying! Shortly into this leg, Steve’s mapboard snapped, so I took over the Nav again. We gave the broken mapboard a very short burial ceremony and off we went. I am not sure what was spurring us on, but we were smashing it. Either the anger from the previous leg, the promise of hot food at the next TA, or the search for water in the town of Fredrickton certainly got us motivated, as we felt like a professional bike racing team. Although we were now out of the race, we still beat the top male team by just under 1 hour on this leg, and this included some extra kms of riding due to missing the first exit to quarry road. Ahh, quarry road. This was where our team had our first niggle, which was pretty good considering we had now been racing for nearly 38 hours. We will put it down to the guys not hearing me to turn due to the noise of the wind on the bikes because we were going so fast and leave it at that!
We reached the raft crossing and stripped down to minimal cloths so we had some warm cloths to put on after. It was very cold at this point, and we had prepared for a long paddle based on our first rafting experience. It was a pleasant surprise to see the tide was with us, so it didn’t take long to cross the river. I was a little concerned at how much Steve was enjoying my ‘body heat’ on the paddle across. Kudos to the person sitting in the kayak in the middle of the river making sure people were safe, as that would have been a very cold and boring job. We packed up quickly, but were very cold.
We again went fast on the bike to warm up, but had trouble staying on our bikes when the uncontrollable shivers went through our bodies causing the handlebars to go everywhere. We passed a few teams along the road and were met at the TA with warm food and a warm fire. It was now 10pm, and it had been 18hrs since we last saw our support team, so needless to say we had no water or food. Butter chicken and rice usually tastes good, but magnify that by 10, and you will get close to how it tasted then. We rugged up for the next kayak leg and off we went. We had it drummed in by support to make sure we went the right way, unlike team Rogue who decided to do some significant extra paddling. Glad the sleep deprivation was not only affecting us. We got about 100m down the creek when Mick realized the control card was back at the TA. We were so glad this got picked up early.
It was warm in the kayaks, but cold out. Skinny Mick doesn’t have much insulation on at the best of times, and he certainly got some extra chill time looking for CP 30, especially when I had them out looking at the wrong bridge. The sleep deprivation was now kicking in, and I was making silly nav errors. What’s an extra 10 minutes over 48 hours I say!
We got to the correct bridge near the weir and continued up the creek for an eternity. Steve’s extra night of sleep deprivation due to the buck’s night was now hitting hard, and the boat was getting a little wobbly as he had some micro sleeps. I was keen not to fall in, so tried to keep him talking. A couple of times I turned around to see Steve ‘paddling’, but unfortunately his paddle was not actually touching the water. He was cold and spent. There was not much navigation happening by now, and I was just looking for a right turn followed by a bridge. The paddle seemed to take an eternity, and we had a couple of disappointing right turns but no bridge, which meant more paddling. The guys were questioning we had gone the wrong way, but it was just a matter of keep going. We arrived to hear our support crew cheering us on at 1:14am. This was the coldest it had been all night, and Steve had to spend some time in the car with the Heater on to warm up. We knew we were on the last leg, and after we had some warm clothes on we started to run to the beach. We hit the beach, knowing there was only 7km to go. This was a nice feeling, and we only had to get one more CP. The last CP proved trickier than expected, mainly due to the sleep deprivation really kicking in. We were all wandering a bit, and not really navigating. We briefly lost each other in the dunes, but eventually found the CP and made our way to the beach. We were all spent by now, and the 7km of soft sand meant some quality time in the hurt locker. Lukas and Steve were struck by the sleep monsters, and were seeing other teams. Steve almost walked straight into the ocean, so we made sure he stayed on the dune side of us for the rest of the race. We could see the lights of Crescent head, however they did not appear to get much closer for ages. We arrived at 5am, and crossed the finish line at 5:11am. We had raced for 45h, 11m, covering 250km, which put us in 17th place overall (out of 32 teams (male and mixed)), which was adjusted back to 21st place after our 3 hour penalty was applied.
The highlights for me were powering on the bike legs, and the night kayaks under the stars. Also, it was pretty special leading the mens division for a good portion of the race. I was also happy that we were able to keep going with no rest easier than I thought it would be. Our teamwork was really good, and there were really no real issues. Each team member stepped up when required and spread the load. We could speed up our transitions a little, and it would be good to sort out our nutrition so we didn’t feel sick. I will definitely be making dry bread a mandatory TA option! The final highlight was the Crescent head bakery. Those vanilla slices and custard tarts were unreal, and I am pretty sure that any weight loss through the race was regained the few days after the race.
The low parts of the race were the rogaines, especially the second one. It really broke us, and I was pretty disappointed with my navigation efforts on that one. More navigation practice, especially at night will really help to improve. I also need to take more care on the first CP, as it really sets you up for the rest of the race.
A huge thanks to Linda Wallis and my dad as they did an awesome job as our support crew. Thanks also to Reuben, Hannah, and Tom (Steve & Linda’s children) for getting dragged around for 48 hours in the car. I know that Ice cream I bought won’t fully pay for the lack of sleep, but hope it goes part of the way.
We all talked on that final beach run if we would do the race again next year, however those conversations will remain under lock and key until we all have had some time to recover and relive the many stories and memories that we gained during the race.
BroCann out.
