From 5 to 8 June, Bear Hunt participated in the GeoQuest (Half). Getting the team lined up for the event was not easy this year. Paul and Caroline were both injured and enjoying physio-sanctioned rehabilitation exercises. We eventually found two team members willing to join us: Laure Gauthiez and Ross Barker. Laure has lots of experience in Orienteering, Rogaining, Rock Climbing and Caving, but has not done any Adventure Racing before. Ross did GeoHalf last year, and has done several other AR, Rogaine and Orienteering events with team No Detour. The Support crew was composed of Rachel, Michael, Caroline and Paul. Michael and Paul have supported Bear Hunt before, and Caroline raced with us last year. Most of us left on Thursday after work and arrived at 12:30am on Friday morning, Ross joined us on Friday morning and Rachel and Michael joined us late on Friday evening. The competency check was fun, the water was cold and “refreshing”. Course reveal was good, although we noticed that there would be a fair bit of paddling and less riding. During map prep, Charlotte and Laure took on the planning of all trek legs and one of the paddling legs. Ross and Minh-Tam planned the MTB legs and another of the paddling legs.
Minh-Tam also put three layers of contact on the little snorkeling map, but water still seeped in on that swim. We wrote lists of which gear and food we all wanted at each TA, and the support crew compiled a list of what to lay out for whom. Race start on Saturday morning was exciting. The race started a little later than anticipated, but eventually all the GeoHalf teams were sent off for their paddle across the 5km patch of chop of the inlet. It was bumpy, and Charlotte and Ross were faster than Laure and Minh-Tam. The slower boat was also having a little trouble holding a straight course, but at least we didn’t capsize. We made an ok time across to the unsupported TA where we got changed and then stood in line to load the boats on to the Geocentric Outdoors trailer. We probably should have split up, two people getting changed while two people load the boats, because it felt like we were waiting a really long time until we were finally able to get going.
Once on leg 2, we jogged along the beach, and we really noticed that Ross has long legs and takes big steps. Later on during this trek leg, we all had to work to keep up with Ross, which was good as it kept the pace up. We reached the TA in 13th place and our excellent support crew was there waiting with a chair for each racer with clothes laid out, bikes ready to go. We sat down and changed shoes while they stuffed snacks in our packs and food into our mouths. A few minutes later we were off, speeding down the streets of Fingal Bay. Minh-Tam was navigating and didn’t like the look of the dirt track we had been aiming for, not convinced that it would be the right one. Instead, we made a small detour and had push the bikes up a steep rutted track. As a result, Minh-Tam misjudged the distance to the next crossing, and we spent a couple of minutes looking for the checkpoint in the wrong spot. We quickly recovered and found the CP at the next crossing.
We quickly collected the other two CPs on the bike rogaine, moving fairly well on the sandy roads. On the last CP on this MTB rogaine we met a team that seemed to be confused about the checkpoints. Turns out, they missed that they needed to collect multiple CPs on the MTB rogaine, and hadn’t marked them on their map. We let them take the locations of the CPs from our map, and then we rode off to CP6, to start the snorkel. During the walk to the first snorkel checkpoint, we were briefly unsure about where we were, but got some help from another team in a trade: we didn’t know where we were, and they had no map but knew where they were. Charlotte guided us in some clever coasteering along the coastline to the bay containing the three submerged checkpoints. On the way, we saw one team looking for checkpoints in the wrong bay. The submerged checkpoints were fun to get.
The water was fresh, but not freezing, and we found them quickly. We enjoyed diving down to pull up the punch and the midday sun warmed us once we got out of the water. We rode on to the TA in around 6th position and quickly transitioned to the trek. Laure guided us through the small tracks and small communities and along the rocky coastline to the Stockton Dune. Some amazing views along the way, including some whales off in the distance. We also saw some camels at the Dune, and it really looked like what we imagine a desert to look like. There was lots of shouting and laughing as we ran down some of the steep sections of dune. Then some boring jog/walk along Port Stephens Drive before we turned off towards the group of houses where we would find our “rafts”. On the way, Laure stopped and pointed out a pile of Koala poo: “Hey, this looks like Koala poo”. She looked up, and there was a massive Dropbear sitting in the tree above the road. Yay, more wildlife! Our $25 Kmart inflatable queen mattress, pumps, paddles and PFDs had been laid out by our support crew and the mattress was pumped up quickly by the battery powered pump. Good purchase from last year’s packrafting.
The water crossing on our bed was less than comfortable, but we made good time, and stayed ahead of Area 51 Tiger, who had started at the same time as us. The mattress sat a bit low in the water with all four of us on it, but once we figured out the best seating arrangement we almost managed a straight line, Charlotte navigating. Charlotte took great joy in slashing the airbed on the other side before we continued on to the kayak transition. We changed up the kayaking pairs for this leg so they were more closely matched. This 13km paddle was the further than Laure had paddled before! We found all the checkpoints easily in the daylight, and had a stunning sunset paddle. Our lovely support crew was waiting for us with hot chocolates at the TA in Karuah. At the stage we were in equal 5th place with Area 51 Tiger, who had frustratingly paddled just a head of us the entire leg. It was interesting to see that they clearly had very unevenly matched paddling pairs, with the slow boat being towed for what we assume was the entire time. The next leg was the longest ride of the race, 33km, and we knocked off most the distance quickly following Ross.
This was also Laure’s longest mountain bike ride, an incredible effort to do it so quickly. The last part of this ride was tough, and we took a route on overgrown, barely existing tracks that involved a lot of carrying bikes through scrub, which was not ideal in hindsight. We saw a decapitated snake here. The nav from Ross and Laure was spot on, and we eventually reached the the final CP before a quick ride down to the TA on a recently graded track. The next trek leg had a lot of off track navigation. We found the first two checkpoints easily, and started following the ridge to the next checkpoint. We skirted around the side of a knoll to avoid unnecessary climbing, but when too far around it and dropped off the ridge slightly. After looking at the tracker, this was only a 5 minute error, but at the time reduced Charlotte’s confidence in the dark and we slowed down to make sure we stayed on the ridge. We saw team mudcakes around this point, and lead them into the CP. There was some confusion after dropping off the saddle to find the track. We saw Tri adventure and Mudcakes here. We spent some time stopped looking at the map before we found it, and continued on, in the opposite direction of everybody else.
Our support crew was extremely worried, and thought we had made a 180 degree error. In reality we were just taking a more on track route, which turned out to be about the same, as we reached the underpass and checkpoint Y at the same time as Mudcakes and Tri adventure. We came into the TA before the second last leg a few seconds behind the others, battling for 3rd. With our support crew urging us on, we had a quick transition and got onto the water at the same time as Tri adventure. We were ahead of Mudcakes, who we didn’t see again because they turned south and went down the wrong arm of the river, costing them an hour. Unfortunately paddling is not our strong suit, and Tri adventure were quickly out of sight. We navigated across the lake without mishap, helped by the lights of our support crew at TA.
We saw a trail of bubbles in the water from Tri adventures boats, so we knew the couldn’t be far in front. Pulling into the TA our crew told us they had left 7 minutes ago. We transitioned as fast as we could, but we knew we probably couldn’t catch them on the final straightforward 21km ride. Apart from a small detour for the only CP, the last ride was all bitumen, and we rode in formation as fast as we could, finishing the race at 5:30am in 4th position, after 21 hours and 10 minutes of racing - 15 minutes behind Tri Adventure. We’d like to thank your amazing support crew. They really made it possible for us to go quickly and move through transitions easily. Gear was was laid out and food stuffed in bags while we were fed. It was a great race and the support crew really is very important here. Also thanks to Craig and Louise and crew for setting a great course and running an excellent event as usual!
