Kathmandu Adventure Sprint - Wild Horse Mountain, Sunshine Coast, QLD
Sunday 19th March 2006

Overcast skies greeted competitors as they arrived at Wild Horse Mountain at 7am. The prospect of a cooler day was short lived as the cloud burned off before the start of the race.

80 teams lined up in front of the start line. Most of them never having done an adventure race before. The male teams started with a bike leg, while the Mixed and Female teams started on foot.

The Kathmandu Adventure Series 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.

The male teams made the first 10km bike leg look easy, with 80% of teams collecting the five checkpoints in under 36 minutes. Mountain bikes went every where as teams swapped there bikes for PFD's and slid into the water (literally) for a 20 meter river crossing. This was followed by a short bush bash before joining a fire trail to the next checkpoint and the kayak transition.

After inflating their kayaks, teams had a 400 meter portage before launching their boats from Coochin Creek boat ramp. On average teams took 45 minutes to complete the 3km kayak along Coochin Creek.

Teams then had to portage their kayaks back to the TA before picking up another checkpoint and crossing the river again back to their bike.

The second bike leg proved to be the most challenging leg of the day. Many teams struggled to find the first checkpoint on this leg. Teams took the most traveled track in the wrong direction and missed the overgrown track heading the right way. Alas most teams realized there error and collected the checkpoint before completing the rest of the 11km mountain bike course.

A quick transition onto foot at the event centre saw teams head out on a 6.5km run (9km if you stayed on the tracks) Once again the course involved a number of creek crossings and bush bashing in order to short cut the marked tracks. Teams even went through some drainage pipes under the Bruce Highway to collect one checkpoint.

Team Scar (Rob Gowland and Robbie Andrews) used the run course to their best advantage overtaking Team Maybe (Doug May and Ian Martin) in the bush to come in second over the line.

First to complete the course were Team Anaconda (Guy Andrews and Michael Johnston) but they were beaten to first place by Team Mountain Designs 2 (Britt Caling and Gary Sutherland) after they were given a time adjustment for waiting for the kayaks.

Teams were treated to a hamburger, fruit and cake while telling tales of the days adventures.

A big thank you to our sponsors: Kathmandu, who provided over $3,000 of prizes and Gu, our energy sponsors for all their support.

This event would not have been possible without all of the volunteers on the day. Thanks to Mitch, Leanne and Geoff for manning the river crossing TA, Gold Coast TAFE for managing the kayak transition area, Jill, Melanie and Sandy for doing rego and results and Beerburrum State School P & C for Catering.