Team Uncharted's Kinetic Double Moon AR report

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Monday, 14 March 2011 00:00

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Team Uncharted's Free State adventure

by Wiehan van der Merwe

The Kinetic Double Moon 250km Adventure Race, sponsored by Salomon and held over 11 – 12 March engraved some great memories into not only my mind, but I am sure a lot of other adventure seekers’ minds too. Team Uncharted, consisting of Wiehan and Lizelle van der Merwe, Alex Pope and Steven Erasmus took on the race held in the Eastern Free State (Bethlehem, Fouriesburg and Clarens).

Upon arriving at the venue we were handed our two race gear boxes which were full of goodies! This included a great Salomon jacket, some energy food bars and a bunch of other stuff. We were shown to our tents, already pitched and equipped with two mattresses with a little chocolate on. It was like booking into a B&B! After team introductions, a thorough race briefing and plotting of our maps we were off to bed.

We soon found out that the race consisted of the following legs:

• · Leg 1: Orienteering Run (7 OPs to be collected in any order over approximately 14km)
• · Leg 2: Orienteering Paddle (4 OPs to be collected in any order over approximately 5km)
• · Leg 3: MTB Cycle (3 CPs over approximately 65km)
• · Leg 4: Trek/Abseil (6 CPs over approximately 18km)
• · Leg 5: MTB Cycle (3 CPs over approximately 67km)
• · Leg 6: Trek (3 CPs over approximately 10km)
• · Leg 7: MTB Cycle (2 CPs over approximately 35km)
• · Leg 8: Kyak (2 CPs over approximately 20km)
• · Leg 9: MTB Cycle (2 CPs over approximately 17km)

A nice and early start at 5am Friday morning saw at least 58 headlamps taking off in different directions. As Alex’s game is orienteering, we managed to hit all the OP’s in great time on the first hike leg of approximately 14km. The next leg, an orienteering paddle of 5km, also went really well and we managed to have a small lead over the other teams when we got onto the first cycle leg.

After a quick transition we took on the 64km cycle. Alex was reading the map with Lizelle hooked on behind him. As my batteries were a little flat after the first two legs, I was holding on to Steven to get me up the hills. We managed good time on this leg and arrived at Fouriesburg transition area just ahead of the Salomon pair.