thorn trees and flying fish.....

Anyone who has ever spent time overseas will understand what I mean when I say that South Africa has a very special beat.

It isn’t something that can be heard, or seen, it is something that is felt deep down in your soul. 

Adventure racing makes this beat, stronger. We get to explore some of the most beautiful places on the planet, experience a diversity of not only landscape and weather, but cultures too.

Bruce and Trystan of Won Adventures gave a group of like-minded, beat fuelled adventurers a chance to recharge, explore and rekindle that love of not only AR, but also our beautiful country during the first annual Transkei Tuff ,hosted out of Wavecrest Lodge, on the banks of the beautiful Nxaxo River Mouth.

After a very stressful two and a half weeks of trying to hold the fort at home, whilst Hanno was racing in Patagonia, Theresa and I headed off for the long long drive to the Transkei.  The drive was not without its fair share of excitement as we hit some serious storms and after picking our team mate Claudia up at East London airport and meeting up with our 4^th, Margaret just outside East London, visibility on the road was reduced to milimeters and not meters!

But eventually we arrived at the gorgeous Wavecrest. En route I experienced some serious déjà-vu as my previous visit to that area was for a training camp during which it poured with rain for 3 days! 

The weather Gods smiled upon us with pleasure though and the sun popped out and we were treated to the most glorious Transkei evening!

Race briefing and supper done, all our gear packed and ready, it was time for some much needed Z’s.

Race day we were greeted by fabulous sunshine. Always good for lifting the spirits and generating excitement of things to come. 

Leg one was a snorkelling challenge, locating 4 checkpoints under water. It was a great ice-breaker and in no time we were changing into cycling kit and heading off on our bicycles for a 19km bike leg.  Navigating in the Transkei is challenging. I’ve learnt some very valuable lessons during the few times I have had the privilege of racing/training there:

1.       Don’t rely on man-made structures such as roads. What is indicated as a road on the map could actually be an overgrown animal path!

2.       Stay away from kloofs. Travelling through them generally involves a lot of painful bundu bashing through thick thorns bushes and clambouring up potential rock faces!

3.       Don’t ever ask for directions. The locals cannot read your map and more than likely don’t understand you.  

4.       ANYTHING can happen and is possible in the Transkei...which is partly why I love it so much!

Our bike leg was jam packed with route options, and having always been relatively conservative with my navigation, I decided it was time to be bold, and take a few chances, and hope that my short cuts would work!

Always a gamble in the Transkei, because of the reasons mentioned above!  Our route took us through many villages and across many rivers and along the beautiful beaches eventually popping out at Trennerys at the Qolora River Mouth.

A Quick transition at the local Trading store and we headed off on foot for a short hike and kloofing section down the Qolora River. Which proved to be an absolute gem, with many different interpretations of Bruces advice of entering the water ‘gingerly’.  It was a fabulous cooling off before back on the bike for a good long cycle.  We had great fun playing leap frog with some of the other teams, with some interesting route choices made by all with varying degrees of success!

We arrived at the Abseil site around 3:30. The view from the top was spectacular!  A quick and relatively easy descent was made interesting by the trek back out of the ‘bowl’ to the top and back to our bikes.  From there it was a very straightforward mostly downhill ride back to Wavecrest. Chasing daylight, we didn’t dilly dally and headed off on the first of the proper trekking legs, which took us along the coast and then up a  kloof. By now it was dark and we were treated to an incredible display of mullets erupting in our headlights at the mouth of the river. After wading up the overgrown kloof we popped out at the top and after locating the final checkpoint headed back to Wavecrest for some food and out on to the paddle.

Paddling Transkei rivers is always fascinating for me. I love fishing, and those rivers are teaming with fish life. I did however have a few rather too up close and personal encounters with some of them as I got literally slapped in the face by a few, leaving me with a mouth full of fish slime and scales. They were jumping all over and kept landing in the boat. After wading around in very stinky sinky mud, and over rocks we located all the check points and headed back to Wavecrest for our final leg, a 21km trek. By this stage, our team had grown somewhat. We were renamed the SPCA as

we had collected numerous stray teams and members. And so it was with a team of 9 that we headed out for the final stage.  About halfway during the leg I had a gentle reminder that one should never be complacent about navigation and after losing focus for a few minutes missed the path we were meant to go on. Luckily it didn’t take long and we were back on track.  We hit the final descent on the beach just as the sun was rising and enjoyed the last hike along the beach in beautiful early morning sunlight.

Arriving at Wavecrest, we were made to feel like rock stars by everyone standing on the bank cheering! The swim across the river was a fitting finish to an absolutely beautiful past 24hrs!

We had a fabulous time, surrounded by amazing fabulous people. There were ups, and there were downs, but we all came out smiling and more enriched because of it.

Thank you Bruce and Trystan, my Team and everyone else for making it such a wonderful event. I cannot wait to see what 2017 holds!

 A massive thank you to Squirt Bike Lube for keeping us lubricated and to Adidas for helping us look good! :)