Gillwell Park Recreation Camp in Gembrook was the HQ for the 2009 Teva Adventure Series. A chilly 7.30am arrival saw teams checking in and receiving their maps and check point clues.
To help with warming up, the start time for your team was determined by your result in a Beep Test - if you reached Level 11 you were to start at 9am - anything less than that you started at 9.05am.
Our original Lonely Planet team of 3 became a team of 2 LPers and 1 ex-LPer as Sam injured herself a few days before the race. At 9am, Adam, Damian and myself raced off on our mountain bikes for a whole two minutes before we had to stop and wait for the long queue of riders to ride/slide down the muddy hill, cross the creek and push our way up the hill on the other side. This prepared us for the mud we would encounter for the rest of the day. Poor Damian wasn't feeling to well and after pushing on for 45mins (and vomiting 3 times along the way), arriving at Transition #1, he decided it was time to go back to HQ and rest.Transition was the time for group challenges and after Adam and I ran off down the fire trails collecting clues and solving a puzzle, we set off back on the bikes. In this leg of the race we decided to do a bit of a 'detour' and climb some hills we didn't necessarily need to climb (in other words, we got a little lost). Back on track, we bush bashed in a few places and arrived at Transition #2. Here our challenge was to listen to TV show theme songs and write down the answers. Even though I only managed to get 6 out of 8, the marshall let us go.
The last mountain bike leg involved a lot of Adam running into thick scrub to find the check points and me carefully studying the map so we knew our way back to HQ. Once there, we found pale-looking Damian who helped us on the next team challenge of making a 'storm proof tent' from tarp, poles and rope.
Giving the legs a bit of a rest, we were off on the run leg of the race with 5 hours already under our belt. The first checkpoint involved a quick canoe, then we followed the map running up, down and around some hills. We soon found ourselves at an obstacle course involving cargo nets, tyres, squeezy tubes and the most fun one of all.......crawling on your hands and knees through 30cm of muddy water! In slishy sloshy shoes we ran to the last few checkpoints before making our way to the finish line at HQ.How to climb into this adventure:
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- visit Teva Adventure Series to get more info on the race
- familiarise yourself with how to use a compass - this will help you confirm you are going in the right direction to a checkpoint (or help you find your way if you get lost)
- for an event like this which can take up to 6 hours, ensure you rehydrate and eat along the way
- remember to HAVE FUN
