Endorphinmag News
Expedition Africa, staged by Kinetic Adventure, attracted one of the strongest entries in this year's AR World Series, with 31 International and South African teams taking part, including 11 teams in the top 50 of the AR World Rankings and two in the top 10.
They all travelled to the Northern Drakensberg mountains in Kwazulu-Natal province and were based together for the start/finish of the 500km race at the Orion Mount-aux-Source Resort. This not only offered a comfortable base and race HQ, it gave the teams a good look at the impressive, and intimidating wall of peaks and cliffs that form the Drakensberg escarpment. (The Zulu name for the range is Ukhahlamba, meaning 'Barrier of Spears'.)
The course, set by Race Director Stephan Muller, took the teams straight into the mountains on day one - climbing all day under clear skies to reach the top of the world's second highest waterfall, the Tugela Falls. The route included a free climb up chain ladders, which was not for the fainthearted, and took teams across the Drakensberg plateau at a height of 3000m, leaving them breathless with the both the scenery and the altitude. Those who spent the first night on the plateau also experienced the bitter cold they had been warned of, but might not have expected in South Africa.
That first trekking stage set the standard for the toughest Expedition Africa race ever as the course moved back down into the lower Drakensberg for paddling and cycling stages and twice more took teams into the high mountains. The cycling allowed teams to experience rural South Africa, passing through villages and bazaars, stopping at schools and local shops and encountering a friendly African welcome everywhere they went. The also had special permission to ride through game reserves, cycling past zebra and giraffe, springbok and wildebeest - an amazing experience.
The paddling stages included reservoirs, lakes and rivers, with one very cold swim to reach the kayaks to begin with and a whitewater section down the Tegula rapids, where there were quite a few more involuntary swims. The second trek took teams down a series of un-named waterfalls in a series of 5 abseils and was to prove as tough as the first. However, it was the final trekking stage which will be remembered most by the teams who got that far around the course, and particularly by the eventual winners, Team Haglofs Silva of Sweden.
After swapping the lead in the early stages with top South African teams Merrell Adventure Addicts and Cyanosis, and with French challengers Raidlight (4th in the last World Champs), Haglofs Silva had established a big lead in the second half of the race. On the final trek the weather turned to rain with thick cloud and mist of the mountains, and one of the best teams of navigators in the world became lost within a few kilometers of the finish!
Unable to find a path down through the cliffs they had to camp out and wait for daylight to find their way down, and crossed the finish line thinking the race was lost in its final throes. They finished in 4 days 3 hours 30 minutes and were amazed and delighted to find they had won despite losing 16 hours on the mountains! All of the teams behind them had become just as lost and disoriented as the bad weather and zero visibility continued for the last 2 days of the race. (There was snowfall on the final day.)
Second to finish were the US team Tecnu Adventure Racing and third were Raidlight (France), just ahead of Cyanosis, who were the top S. African team. Team Omjakon of Finland were 5th and another Swedish team, SWECO, were 6th. Twelve of the 31 starting teams managed to complete the whole course, which Bjorn Rydvall, the captain of Haglofs Silva said was, "so tough it could have been a World championship course."
You can see the website coverage of the race and full results at www.kineticgear.org and find out more about the AR World Series at C
Expedition Africa, staged by Kinetic Adventure, attracted one of the strongest entries in this year's AR World Series, with 31 International and South African teams taking part, including 11 teams in the top 50 of the AR World Rankings and two in the top 10.
They all travelled to the Northern Drakensberg mountains in Kwazulu-Natal province and were based together for the start/finish of the 500km race at the Orion Mount-aux-Source Resort. This not only offered a comfortable base and race HQ, it gave the teams a good look at the impressive, and intimidating wall of peaks and cliffs that form the Drakensberg escarpment. (The Zulu name for the range is Ukhahlamba, meaning 'Barrier of Spears'.)
The course, set by Race Director Stephan Muller, took the teams straight into the mountains on day one - climbing all day under clear skies to reach the top of the world's second highest waterfall, the Tugela Falls. The route included a free climb up chain ladders, which was not for the fainthearted, and took teams across the Drakensberg plateau at a height of 3000m, leaving them breathless with the both the scenery and the altitude. Those who spent the first night on the plateau also experienced the bitter cold they had been warned of, but might not have expected in South Africa.
That first trekking stage set the standard for the toughest Expedition Africa race ever as the course moved back down into the lower Drakensberg for paddling and cycling stages and twice more took teams into the high mountains. The cycling allowed teams to experience rural South Africa, passing through villages and bazaars, stopping at schools and local shops and encountering a friendly African welcome everywhere they went. The also had special permission to ride through game reserves, cycling past zebra and giraffe, springbok and wildebeest - an amazing experience.
The paddling stages included reservoirs, lakes and rivers, with one very cold swim to reach the kayaks to begin with and a whitewater section down the Tegula rapids, where there were quite a few more involuntary swims. The second trek took teams down a series of un-named waterfalls in a series of 5 abseils and was to prove as tough as the first. However, it was the final trekking stage which will be remembered most by the teams who got that far around the course, and particularly by the eventual winners, Team Haglofs Silva of Sweden.
After swapping the lead in the early stages with top South African teams Merrell Adventure Addicts and Cyanosis, and with French challengers Raidlight (4th in the last World Champs), Haglofs Silva had established a big lead in the second half of the race. On the final trek the weather turned to rain with thick cloud and mist of the mountains, and one of the best teams of navigators in the world became lost within a few kilometers of the finish!
Unable to find a path down through the cliffs they had to camp out and wait for daylight to find their way down, and crossed the finish line thinking the race was lost in its final throes. They finished in 4 days 3 hours 30 minutes and were amazed and delighted to find they had won despite losing 16 hours on the mountains! All of the teams behind them had become just as lost and disoriented as the bad weather and zero visibility continued for the last 2 days of the race. (There was snowfall on the final day.)
Second to finish were the US team Tecnu Adventure Racing and third were Raidlight (France), just ahead of Cyanosis, who were the top S. African team. Team Omjakon of Finland were 5th and another Swedish team, SWECO, were 6th. Twelve of the 31 starting teams managed to complete the whole course, which Bjorn Rydvall, the captain of Haglofs Silva said was, "so tough it could have been a World championship course."
You can see the website coverage of the race and full results at www.kineticgear.org and find out more about the AR World Series at www.arworldseries.com.
.
ARWS
May 2013.
Who are we?
