Insider's View
After attending the Mark Webber Challenge 2007 finale dinner with the team from Lonely Planet, I was keen to be more involved in the amazing adventure race.
The Mark Webber Challenge is a 5 day adventure race consisting of 239km of running, mountainbiking, kayaking, ropes, and other various aspects, across parts of Tasmania including Cradle Mountain, Freycinet National Park, Lake Barrington, just to name a few.
This race raises funds for both the Leukaemia Foundation and the Save the Tasmania Devil Appeal.
I was lucky enough to be selected as a Team Host for the 2008 Challenge. This meant that I was responsible for 3 teams - Royal Bank of Scotland (team of 4), Europcar (team of 4) & Cascade Green (team of 2 - Olympic Rowers, Scott Brennan and David Crawshay). I drove them around, made sure they knew what was going on each day and was a contact if they had any questions about anything to do with the race.
Camp base for the first 3 days of the race was at the magestic Lake Barrington. My first job as host was to drive the 1.5hr (each way) trip from Barrington to the airport three times to pick up competitors as they arrived in Tasmania. Back at camp, they settled into their tents on the grassy field, as us volunteers felt like kings and queens sleeping in the bunk rooms.
Time for our Host meeting and a chance to shake hands with the big man - Mark Webber. It was a bit surreal sitting there, only 1 meter away and pretending I wasn't excited. I'm not a big racing fan, but to be involved in a special event like this, and have conversations with Mark, was pretty amazing.
In the afternoon there was the competitor briefing on the banks of Lake Barrington. Course descriptions were read out, safety information, meeting of the hosts and other 60 volunteers and we were ready for dinner. The dining tent was amazing, as was the food and wine catered for 150 people each night.
An early night for most of the competitors as they had a big five days coming up, but us Hosts and the other volunteers (who really didn't have to do any exercise at all) stayed up a bit later tasting the delicious Tasmanian wines and listened to each others stories.
After attending the Mark Webber Challenge 2007 finale dinner with the team from Lonely Planet, I was keen to be more involved in the amazing adventure race.
The Mark Webber Challenge is a 5 day adventure race consisting of 239km of running, mountainbiking, kayaking, ropes, and other various aspects, across parts of Tasmania including Cradle Mountain, Freycinet National Park, Lake Barrington, just to name a few.
This race raises funds for both the Leukaemia Foundation and the Save the Tasmania Devil Appeal.
I was lucky enough to be selected as a Team Host for the 2008 Challenge. This meant that I was responsible for 3 teams - Royal Bank of Scotland (team of 4), Europcar (team of 4) & Cascade Green (team of 2 - Olympic Rowers, Scott Brennan and David Crawshay). I drove them around, made sure they knew what was going on each day and was a contact if they had any questions about anything to do with the race.Camp base for the first 3 days of the race was at the magestic Lake Barrington. My first job as host was to drive the 1.5hr (each way) trip from Barrington to the airport three times to pick up competitors as they arrived in Tasmania. Back at camp, they settled into their tents on the grassy field, as us volunteers felt like kings and queens sleeping in the bunk rooms.
Time for our Host meeting and a chance to shake hands with the big man - Mark Webber. It was a bit surreal sitting there, only 1 meter away and pretending I wasn't excited. I'm not a big racing fan, but to be involved in a special event like this, and have conversations with Mark, was pretty amazing.
In the afternoon there was the competitor briefing on the banks of Lake Barrington. Course descriptions were read out, safety information, meeting of the hosts and other 60 volunteers and we were ready for dinner. The dining tent was amazing, as was the food and wine catered for 150 people each night.
An early night for most of the competitors as they had a big five days coming up, but us Hosts and the other volunteers (who really didn't have to do any exercise at all) stayed up a bit later tasting the delicious Tasmanian wines and listened to each others stories.
Nice work. I came across your blog while “blog surfing” using the Next Blog button on the blue Nav Bar located at the top of my blogger.com site. I frequently just travel around looking for other blogs which exist on the Internet, and the various, creative ways in which people express themselves. Thanks for sharing.