GODZone Adventure Race – 522km, six-days
Published on Saturday, April 21st, 2012, under Media
FairFax NZ News –
10 April 2012 –
Ellis and Shane, manning high rope section, Lennox Pass for competitors in six-day GODZone adventure race.
To watch video footage of Ellis and Shane being helicoptered into Lennox Pass for GODZone Adventure Race (Click)
Rapid start to 522km, six-day GODZone race
A mass of headlights and glow-sticks lit up the shoreline in Milford Sound yesterday morning as 124 competitors kick-started the 522km GODZone Adventure race.
Race director Adam Fairmaid said 31 teams of four lined up under the Bridal Veil Falls at 6.30am to start the race, which consisted of 126km of trekking, 279km of mountainbiking and 117km of kayaking, from Milford Sound to Queenstown.
Ellis and Shane's exposed camp site below Mt Earnslaw
Competitors would travel day and night to complete the gruelling course, taking breaks and sleeping when needed.
Teams were up at 3.45am to be transported to the first leg of the race, an 8km kayak.
Some of the competitors were graced by a pod of bottlenose dolphins that splashed and flipped around their boats, Mr Fairmaid said.
Australian team Hard Yuccas member Lisa Antill said she was surprised by how close they got to the wildlife, “they were fully breaching out of the water around us, and it was quite incredible to witness”.
Looking up the Earnslaw Burn where GODZone competitors race
Competitors then transitioned to a mountainbike leg, a 49km ride over the Homer Saddle through the Homer Tunnel and into the Upper Hollyford Valley to the Eglinton River.
Co-race director Warren Bates said teams blazed through the first day of the six-day event and were ahead of projected race times by 20 to 30 minutes.
Last night teams headed into their first trek, a 54km trek over the Dunton Mountain Range on the outskirts of Te Anau.
“We expect the first teams to arrive at the Mavora Lake transition area in the early hours of today but I have to say there is some tricky navigation on this trek particular for one checkpoint so they could spend some time bush bashing to try and find it.
GODZone competitors race up the Earnslaw Burn towards Mt Earnslaw
“It’s going to be exciting to see if the lead teams remain in their current positions but I’m not expecting them to sleep much if at all on the first night so they could move quite quickly,” Mr Bates said.
The first teams are expected to cross the finish line in Queenstown on Thursday but racers have until 2pm on Saturday to finish.
Dawn over Mt Earnslaw from Lennox Pass
