T'Walk 24 Hour Rogaine

60 seconds is a long time. 60 minutes is a longer time still. But 24 hours? Twenty four hours spent enduring punishing but spectacular terrain in the Canterbury backcountry? Now that's what I call a good time.

"JAFAS" - surrounded by 49 South Island teams we decided to be Auckland proud

 Sharon Hornblow came at us back in April pushing AUTC to enter a team into a 24 hour epic rogaining/orienteering race organised by the Canterbury Uni Tramping Club. "Come do the TWALK!", she said. "Otago teams have been dominating for too long, we need some northern blood to shake up the competition."

 We were keen from the outset, and with cheap flights appearing through the woodwork there was no excuse. Christchurch for one weekend seemed extravagant, but sometimes in life you need to be impulsive. This was one of those times. Coated in a crunchy red shell and loaded full of chocolate and Powerbar, Team JAFAS stepped out of the bus into our much-awaited mystery location: Lake Coleridge.

Lake Coleridge appears...

Saturday morning, 50 teams in flourishing and hilarious costumes were deposited with maps on the road-side just over Porters Pass. Our first mission was to navigate ourselves to the Hash House nearby Lake Coleridge. Hash house... a special woolshed churning out an eternal supply of food thanks to some special volunteers. A constant flurry of food appeared... hot lasagne, fresh pizza, chunky soup, warm muffins, coffee, cereal, sandwiches... this was our main driving source as we collected the first 16 checkpoints hidden in boggy streams, under thick matagouri scrub, rocky outcrops on scree slopes, and generally in the most difficult and awkward locations.

White peaks in the distance feed the Rakaia River - the northern strains of the Southern Alps

But our rewards were in the form of spectacular Canterbury scenery, new vistas appearing around each corner. On the dry scree tops the autumn sun was scorching, and after the opening fanfare of costumes wore off we soon found ourselves peeling off awkward kid-sized helmets, James packed away his straw sack, and Helen itched at her face paint. All thoroughly worth it though. Our self-inflicted inconvenience seemed insignifcant compared to carrying a giant paper-maché Donut on your shoulders as one pair impressively pulled off. Delicious.

"Immerse yourself in toxic waste"

Navigating on the 1:50 000 topographical map was difficult, even one contour line represented 20 metres in height change - in reality this was quite a decent sized feature, with little more detail to help us narrow down the location. Luckily, the good folks setting the T'Walk (pronounced "twork") had provided us with a set of incredibly useful cryptic clues. "Mucking around with mason" translated to a small muddy, rocky stream gulley in an otherwise featureless hillside. "Follow the bees from the door to the coleslaw" meant us to follow the fence posts from a farm-gate to a cabbage tree - we found the plastic token at the base of a fence post just after brutalising an innocent cabbage tree. Ironically, the clues only made complete sense after the clue was found, at the very least this made for a long slightly frustrated sigh at the cleverness of the setters.

 

Fading to dusk, making the most of the last of the day light

One of the highlights was surely the arising of the supermoon - a full fifteen percent closer - the glowing round slowly revealed itself from hiding beyond the Craigieburn Range. Our shadows were tossed across the tussockland at the low moon angle, so bright that our head torches were mostly useless except for clue-searching. So we kept the moon as our guide as we carried on with the never-ending mission... into twelve hours of night.  

The peregrine moon comes out to play

Before long, the buzz of the moon stars and mountains wore off and we found ourselves heading towards a depressing three-clue losing streak. There's only so long you can bare to wander aimlessly around an empty plateau searching for a clue as cryptic as "Ready to rock and turning dirty, in between some humping". Eventually you need to give up - always a very tough call - but often the clue is found on the way out! We had to show some patience though, because as we slipped further and deeper into the night, a rapidly dwindling patience would leave us exhausted as well as empty handed...

It wasn't all bleary-eyed misery in the hills however, Rogaine karma did serve us our fair share of luck in return for our perserverance. Following the distastrous run, we stumbled across a string of five easy clues that sent us flying out of Leg 2, into the Hash House, for a luxurious pre-midnight feast.

Jafa helmets made excellent bowls

11:30pm - heading out for Leg #3

We had timed it perfectly, even as if to a plan. In Auckland we had debated whether we'd need tents, winter sleeping bags, sleeping mats... as we left the Hash house woolshed nearing midnight, it dawned on me that Leg 3 would keep us entertained until dawn at least and rule out any opportunity for sleep. Besides, who could sleep when there was work to be done! At a glance, the route would send us climbing 600m over Carriage Drive Saddle, a long sidle around Cottons Sheep Range to Lake Selfe and back via  Little Mt Ida through swamps, powerlines, and ever-ending gravel road before breakfast.

The 20 hour freakout face

Fog had moved in behind the Peregrine shiner, this not only reduced visibility but forced me to extrapolate my mountain tops before I could take any compass bearings. Its a hard time navigating in the dark, sleep-deprived eyes wander from the map to the back of my eyelids, every so often an uneven step on the rough ground jolted me to focus. As much as 16,17,18 hours of constant walking and jogging sent us into extreme bouts of fatigue, the relief and joy of every checkpoint that we discovered was all the more intense. As we stumbled upon a huge green water tank we all laughed, and groaned - why? Searching far and wide for the "Incredible Hulk", our exhausted imaginations could only envision an abstractly shaped bush or tree...

Fog and sleet in the early hours, Sylvie powers on

 

Celebrating the coming of dawn!

 Its always a special experience, witnessing the slow arrival of dawn. Although fog delayed the 7am rise, it was the same fog that kept us relatively warm all night stalking the fields. We were prepared for snow, almost hoping for snow, giving full respect to the potentially freezing Canterbury high country. Sunday morning was a different story. After a brief scoffing session of cold porridge and hot coffee (anything tastes good after a hungry night), we emerged into a glorious mid-morning arena.

Sylvie lining up the map with the features

  We came into the competition with low hopes of competing, but this changed suddenly when we realised we were holding 8th place. With little over two hours left to salvage as many points in Leg 4 to hold our position, we dug deep and flung ourselves at four more controls: all or nothing. The mood was tense, we needed to be swift and navigate accurately, no messin' about. One eye on the compass needle, one eye searching for the clue, you can imagine the nerves...

Stumped in the crucial final minutes...

 Over the course of the past "day" we had developed a cunning technique of communicating within our team if we had found the clue or not. With 50 fellow teams scouring the same countryside as us, our competitive spirit couldn't afford to give out any hints... With forty minutes on the clock to finish, we were cutting it fine to find the "Queen Flax" in one annoyingly flax-filled field. The moment that Helen heard her call - "let's go Scarlet", Sylvie was beckoned with "I think we'd better leave this one, Amber", and James - "enough searching Roberto, time to bail" - everyone slid on a silent smile. Our 42nd control was bagged and the Hash house was soon in sight...

Big country - steep scree slopes crumble away from the ridges

 AUTC T'Walked into the woolshed proud, 23 hours 39 minutes after the starting stapler had set us charging all those hours ago. For Helen & I, this was our first 24 hour endurance event, something that had seemed huge and daunting in theory. James & Sylvie shared stories of blisters, accidental sleep-ins, midnight gut hurlers and more - obviously we were enticed to put our feet to an honest twenty-fourer. It was with huge grins that we four slept on the pebbly yard waiting for the bus, baking in rich Canterbury sun.

Each colour represents a different leg of the journey and a quick feast at the hash house

Check out the results from T'Walk 2012 here. We were stoked to score 2nd in the student team section and 9th overall. The sleep deprivation made the extra difference, although we severely paid for it in the week to follow... T'Walk 2013 - we'll be back!

St James Rogaine

For my third weekend based in Nelson I was keen to get out a bit further afield, beyond the bordering Richmond Ranges. Also, this weekend was rearing all over the country with mountain events - from the south, the glamorous Kepler Challenge 60km run in Te Anau. To the north, the infamous GOAT 21km around Ruapehu guaranteed to chew up your shoes, if not your soul. I had been looking forward to the Goat all year, but the Cook Strait proved too much of a logistical challenge. Plus, I was in the South Island already...

No Goat this year

I found my revenge in the form of the St James "Office Hours" 7-hour Rogaine held in the ranges beyond Hanmer Springs. Although I couldn't find a team mate in Nelson, I didn't give up. I took a gamble, and made the 300km journey to registration at St James Homestead hopeful, and nervous, to find a team... Success! The gamble paid off, I joined up with Elisha Nuttall and Joel Smith from Canterbury and Otago, and we made the ultimate team.

Elisha & Joel rearing to go at briefing

THE MAP

High above the steamy Hanmer Springs, we were now in real Canterbury high-country, and the most incredible terrain for a rogaine I'd ever seen. Take a patch of North Island farmland, add some towering 1800m mountain ranges and braided river valleys, and you get the idea. A nor-westerly was threatening us with rain so we packed for the conditions, carrying a stash of Gore-tex and merino. Joel scoffed at the briefing and repped a cotton tee-shirt, the whole day.

First up the first hill, foolish but necessary

9:30AM: The horn sounded. We darted up the nearest knoll-top for our first 10 points of the day. We were in the lead. Our strategy was to start out with some flat controls to start the day at a good pace, we headed north and pick up up 7 more controls without much trouble. The second most-valuable control in the far north had a pot of jelly-beans at the flag, we were delighted. To be my downfall or not, this lead to me ditching my salami sandwiches, chasing a sweet-toothed sugar craving all day. Only one hour had passed, how long would I last?

Jelly Beans. Yummy

Rugged high-country terrain

We had a horrible time finding #60 perched on a saddle above Horrible stream - I was convinced we were at the right saddle and high point combination, but there was good reason why the compass didn't agree... Determined to make up time, we raced on to catch up the school team who had ashamedly crept past us.

Cresting the rocky spur to #70

After following the easy ridge up to Samoa Mound, we crashed down a scree slope into the valley heading west. We cruised through 5 easy controls, before filling up water in the DW stream. The terrain was extremely rough and made running hard at the best of times. We pushed straight up the hillside to collect #62, and while sidling round to the next stream gulley we met eventual winners Chris Forne and Nathan Fa'ave climbing in the opposite direction - clearing finding it hard work too!

Marshy, wide valleys to the west

Big scree covered slopes

With time ticking rapidly towards 7 hours, we had to start lowering our expectations, and we dropped four controls high on the St James range. We were saving our climbing energy for the big 100 pointer atop Peter's Hill - number-one priority in our race plan. We cleared the swampy Peters Valley of the low controls and made a late dash for the summit! 1 hour 20 to go...

Battling the weather to summit Peter's Hill

The rain that had held off all day finally made its presence known, and at 1100m above the valley plains we felt its full force. Joel, still hugging his cotton t-shirt and not much else, didn't complain, all eyes were focussed on avoiding the prickly matagouri scrub and searching through the mist for the orange-white control flag. Boom - there it is: we punched our wrist bands and scrambled into the final stream gorge to find #72. The clue seemed straightforward: "Base of rocky outcrop/spur".

Only a few obstacles before us to conquer

We spent 20 minutes of precious time searching the steep stream banks to find no said rocky outcrop - the 7-hour countdown was racing, find it or flee! One last desperate attempt for a valuable 70 points, we charged down the gorge to try and find it en-route to the finish checkpoint. There it was! For once it was the map who was wrong! By now we didn't care, and battled through the shrub up & over the spur to descend to the road - five minutes to go - three of us ran the final kilometre towards the finish, with a generous helping of seconds left in reserve.

FINISH.
6:58:34

We almost cramped stiff after stopping in the rain. Back to St James homestead for a few moist sausages cake and tea - no better way to finish an awesome day in the hills. Even better was the luck of finding such mint team-mates - Joel & Elisha were solid all day - even though we're spread across the country we'll definitely meet up for some adventures in the future...

Nathan Fa'ave and Chris Forne powered their way through the course to pick up 1620pts from a pot of 1710. Impressive stuff from the adventure racing & orienteering champs. We were happy with our collection of 1200pts, and picked up an iced Christmas cake for our efforts. Thanks to Grant Hunter and the team at NZ Rogaine Association for organising such a sweet event.

Bethells 12-hour Rogaine

7pm, 19th February 2010: I set off in a team from Muriwai Beach one late summer evening, taking part in a very unofficial 12 hour Rogaine which would send us through the night searching for make-shift checkpoints hidden along streams, under viewing platforms, around coastal cliffs… I loved it. This exciting and adventurous idea lay as a seed, dormant in the fertile plains of my mind until [ironically] the winter of this year. Noticing that Auckland was lacking any long distance Rogaine events, I decided to take the initiative and launch my own. A challenge for runners, trampers and orienteers alike; the Bethells 12-Hour Rogaine was born.

The event was advertised through tramping clubs, sports forums and word of mouth, with one team even traveling from Hamilton to take part. While the threatening weather forecast saw many last minute pull-outs, we had almost thirty keen participants lining up at the Surf Club gate rearing to go. This extraordinary challenge was set in the unique surroundings of Te Henga, Bethells Beach - a great location for the event; with access to the extensive Cascades track network, Te Henga trail, rugged beaches, sand dunes, and Lake Wainamu. Thirty controls were spread out across the map, with several interesting route choices to consider. Tide times and darkness hours were also thrown into the churning strategy pot, leaving teams some serious thinking to do in the thirty minutes before midnight.

Walkers would become trampers, trampers would become navigators, and navigators would become endurance athletes, as they were thrown into the dark, and the ugly, for a full twelve hours of glorious adventure. As Charles Dickens famously said, “The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother”.

Held in the guts of winter, the wild West Coast lived up to its name. Teams who chose to start along the Te Henga Walkway, a dramatic 9 kilometre section of coastal track, were belted with sou’westerlies in the silhouette-shadow landscape of the early morning. Andrew Turnbull from team “The Camel & the Straw” said, “It was a really awesome event, the Te Henga trail in the wind and the rain was epic.”

At each checkpoint, a short clue narrowed down the likely whereabouts of the treasure, in the form of red & white plastic tape. Each location had a unique two-letter code that teams would write down to prove their conquest. Each code was an acronym describing something about the surroundings, e.g. a tape-wrapped rock hidden in a crevasse around the coast of Erangi point that was only accessible at low tide had the code ‘LT’. The further out they ventured from the base, the more points they could earn. If teams managed to trek out as far as Ongaruanuku Hut, they would be stoked to find some red & white tape hanging in the woodshed. One team decided to treat themselves to a power nap at the hut before the homeward journey, via a waterfall traverse at Pig Wallow, some tree climbing on Chateau-Mosquito, a stream bash down the Wainamu, and finishing with a rock climb and some cave exploring on Bethells Beach, before collapsing at the finish. Elated, and alive.

Substantial calories were replaced at the finish with hearty servings of pumpkin soup, warmed to perfection with the trusty club primus. Matt Lillis, notable gourmet outdoor chef de cuisine found the generously frosted chocolate cake to be “succulent and moist”.

Helen Liley and myself spent two days tramping through the Waitakeres setting up the course the week prior, finding interesting locations and writing clues on the go. We slept at O’nuku Hut and in a spectacular bivvy against the cliffs of Bethells Beach the following night. Luckily it wasn’t tested for water-proofness.

The Bethells 12-Hour Rogaine was a huge success in its first running; all the teams seemed to arrive back at base looking shattered, but exhilarated by the experience of going hard all through the night, and walking into the new day. 


The overall winner was elite women’s adventure racing team, Team Macpac Girls on Top, who managed to cover a 53km loop (with an impressive 2187m vertical gain) around all three sections of bush, picking up all but two checkpoints!

Following this success, we plan to organise more of these longer Rogaines in the future, and also hope that this will inspire others to organise similar events. We have our sights set on running a Hunua 12-Hour Rogaine for November 2011, and a Karekare 12-Hour Rogaine for February 2012. Planning will start soon, so watch this space for more details to come!

Final Results (Maximum score 1840)

1.  Macpac Girls On Top – 1600
	a.  Anne Lowerson, Debbie Chambers, Cath Heppelthwaite
2.  Dash Hounds – 1150
	a.  Mike Judd, Rupert Dash, Steve Pyatt
3. : Hamilton Devilled Eggs – 930
	a.  Elliot O’Brien, Isaac Dempsey, Nick Vignati, Craig Smith
4.  Team Type 1 – 820
	a.  Claire Dobson, Alan Dobson
5.  Tim & Tony – 760
	a.  Timothy Burrell, Tony Hastie
6.  Cool Katz – 550
	a.  Hannah Lockie, Tane Moore, Matt Martin
7.  Matt’s Crew – 380
	a.  Matt Lillis, Laurien Heijs, Georgia Yarrow, Rosanna Walton
8.  Peter & David – Disq
	a.  Peter Guillburt, David Keall
9.  Camel & the Straw – Disq
	a.  Andrew Turnbull, Hannah Lowe
10.  Otago University Tramping Club – Disq
	a.  Edward Colenbrander, James West, Ian Grimson, Malcolm Durling