Lake Munmorah Kathmandu Adventure Challenge
Sunday 5th March 2006

Cloudy skies greeted competitors as they arrived at Birdie Beach Carpark in Lake Munmorah State Conservation Area, 40 minutes South of Newcastle. Participants were getting ready for the second of six races in the Kathmandu Adventure Series

This series of Adventure Races are run along the East Coast of Australia. Male, female or mixed teams of two battle it out by foot, bike and boat for over $3,000 of prizes supplied by Kathmandu. Events are located at National Parks within an hour of the capital city. Each event involves multiple legs which require competitors to navigate their way through a series of checkpoints. Courses are designed to take between three and six hours to complete.

At 9am over 150 competitors ran under the start banner onto Birdie Beach towards Waterfall Beach. The sea gulls were not the only ones to be surprised by the mass of competitors pounding along the beach. A few early bird nudists wished they weren't such early raisers as the competitors ran past.

Ascending a fisherman's track from Waterfall Beach to the Geebung Heath Track, competitors followed this to Campbell Drive. First to arrive at the Run Bike Transition was Team Nil by Mouth (Stu Adams and Chad Singleton) completing the 4km run in just over 24 minutes. Hot on their heel's was Team Unleaded (Jeremy Grey and Tom Wilcox).

Competitors then jumped onto their bikes picking up two checkpoints on the way to the next Transition at Frazer Beach. Unfortunately the first of these at Wybung Head had been stolen overnight, leaving competitors searching high and low for the missing checkpoint.

This allowed Team Munmorons (Dion Carter and Andrew Mitchell) to give themselves a four minute lead over Nil by Mouth before embarking on a 3km coasteer to pick up two more checkpoints along the headland.

Team Barracudas (Simon Rawson and Sean Nicholson) made good time on this leg over taking Munmorons and transitioning with Nil by Mouth onto the penultimate bike leg.
First to arrive at the bike/kayak transition after the 13km bike ride was Munmorons and Unleaded, followed by Nil by Mouth four minutes later. While the kayaks were being inflated, Munmorons and Unleaded discovered they had missed the previous three checkpoints. Realising their error, Munmorons went back to collect the three checkpoints while Unleaded decided to accept the time penalty.

Nil by Mouth cleaned up the 2km kayak course in under 25 minutes before cruising to the finish in first in 2 hours and 45 minutes. 13 minutes later Barracudas crossed the line in second place.

The next event is in two weeks time on the Sunshine Coast on Sunday 19th March.

Teams were treated to a BBQ chicken feast, while telling tales of the days adventures.