By Margaret Cudmore
Adventure Racer

Over 8 – 9 May, two senior Westlake Adventure Racing teams headed down to Taupo for one of the biggest races of the year. The Hillary Challenge qualifying race is a 6-hour Adventure race consisting of multiple stages of mountain climbing, running/orienteering, and problem solving. Each premier team consists of four guys (from Westlake Boys) and four girls. The race changes every year, and this year 29 teams from across the north island competed in a gruelling 5km trail bike, followed by 10km’s of cross country orienteering, transitioning into a 7km on road and off road bike, followed by a 5 minute pit stop, then a 5km pt2-cross counting orienteering run/plod, and then the worst part … a 14km bike and run across the hilly Whakaipo bay track into Kinloch.

The team of eight had four bikes in this stage. This meant that four team members on the bikes could help the members running, by carrying their packs (or you could be like our team, who had one team member carry four packs on a bike). We came out of this stage feeling terrible. Tears, cramps, shouting matches… but we still had another 40 minutes to Rogaine around the streets of Kinloch in an attempt to collect more points. In the end we only managed to collect three control points before we ran out of time and had to be back before the 6-hour mark. We attempted two of the mystery problem solving challenges in Kinloch, but decided they weren’t worth the time and ran off to collect more points.

Our team just made it back with one minute to spare, while the other Westlake team arrived two minutes late (losing 60 points in the process). All in all it was a great race and we managed to place 6th in the North Island, just missing out on a nationals spot (we had to place in the top 5). Hopefully we still get wildcarded in *fingers crossed*!