WPASS 100 Race Report

by Sean Hutchinson

The WPASS 100 took place over the first weekend of December 2007. We entered a team of 3, consisting of Anna, Quintin and Sean. After a heavy year if racing including the Eden challenge where all 3 of us raced in different teams, we were looking forward to the race.

Waking early on Saturday morning to blustery conditions in Cape Town we made our towards that start venue near Caledon. I was not looking forward to driving over Sir Lowry’s Pass in the windy conditions with two canoes on the roof of my car thanks to my roof racks having broken in windy conditions in the past. However, the journey turned out to be a quick one, including the obligatory speeding fine near Grabouw (I will still argue that a 93 Jetta cannot go that fast with two canoes on the roof).

Arriving at the start venue early, we got our maps and sat down to plot our route. I was fairly nervous about this as I had been tasked with the navigation for this race in order to improve my skills for the Bull of Africa in August 2008. After plotting the route I was fairly confident that the navigation would not be a problem. Time to relax until the start time at 12h00.

The first CP was attacked in mass by all teams as it was a mere 500m from the start, following this a short 5km run to the river to get into our boats. We were using a recently purchased Noka K2 and a K1. Initially Anna and I were in the Noka, but after a fair bit of swimming, mostly due to the fact that I spend most of my time in a single sufski, I jumped into the K1 and let Quintin and Anna paddle the Noka (Now named The Submarine due to the amount of time it spent under water during this 15km river paddle/swim/drag/float). After a few hours on the water we were looking forward to getting on our bikes where we felt most at home, this led to us portaging a fair section of the river just so we did not have to paddle.

Jumping on the bikes we set off into the afternoon heat, following my route. After getting the first PC on the bike leg, I managed to guide us past a turn as I was not concentrating properly (actually, I will blame this on Quinitn because I can), which cost us about 15 mins (ok, time to wake up). The rest of the ride was a slog on the gravel roads in the area, with a river crossing towards the end to get a PC. Following this river crossing, we had a short ride along the tarred road back to the transistion area at the start venue; during this cycle we witnessed a sublime sunset as can be seen by the photos.

Entering the transition area after dark, my confidence in my navigation diminished, so I handed over to Quintin to navigate for the last Hike leg. Following a quick transition we were off into the warm night. After taking a short while to find the hiking trail, we set off into the mountains. About half an hour into the hike, we encountered Owen and Hanno steaming back down the mountain and to the finish. This made us feel a bit better, as we had made up some time after our disastrous paddle. From here we anticipated a maximum of 4 hours until we finished, (lovely, in bed by midnight). However, this was not to be.

The trail we were on had a turn off, which we did not see in the dark. The trail we were on started to fade and was eventually lost. Now, this is where things went pear shaped. (Remember, anyone in the transition area would be able to see where we are as our headlights flashed on the mountain side). From here, we wondered around the wrong ridge on the mountain taking us basically 4 hours off course. Realizing this mistake, we decided to go up and over the ridge to try and meet up with the correct trail again. After many hours of running we managed to find the path, mainly due to luck of seeing one of the other team’s headlights on it. With spirits lifted, we set off on the trail at a blistering pace, encountering many teams heading back from the PC with comments of “you are still out here” flying all over the place!

Now that we were on the path, we made short work of the 1000 odd metres of ascending to get the final PC. We even managed to catch up with a team, that was almost 2 hours ahead of us when we got to the PC, before we finished as the sun started to poke out over the mountains.

Even though the race was not a good one results wise, it was a good experience and the lessons learned will be remembered for the next one. One of the major plusses to come out of this race was that after finishing, all of us felt strong and believed that we could have done it all over again right then. A good sign for Bull??