What’s GODZone? Adventure like no other. Highlight of the year. Test of physical and
mental toughness, resilience and endurance. GODZone is an epic adventure
with your friends where in the space of
a week everything changes. You’ll finish the race and never look at the World
with the same set of eyes again. GODZone takes you out of your comfort zone -
over and over.
GODZone is an
unsupported, multiday, expedition race set in beautiful, raw, wilderness of New
Zealand’s South Island.
It doesn’t
sounds like a walk in the park. Does it. So why have I decided to do it again? GODZone
allows me to escape from the somewhat restrictive nature of the world we live
in. As normal guy with a family, a 8 to 5 job and a mortgage we are tied to our
phones, schedules and never-ending list of things to do. We seem to be juggling
endless tasks, deadlines and appointments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365
days a year. GODZone grants freedom from this. There are no lists of things to
do, no phones, no emails. The weight and the noise from this world dissipates,
you feel weightless. It’s just you, your teammates and the immediate
environment surrounding you, which can be as small as the bubble of light cast
by your headlamp at night. It is liberating. You truly get to live in the moment;
life seems so raw, so pure, and so simple. Eat, sleep (minimal amounts), walk,
ride, kayak and repeat endlessly. In those few days life is stripped down to
the bare essentials, you are reminded that the small stuff is not worth
fretting about.
I think that deep down we all crave the feeling that GODZone provides.
A chance to escape the frantic, high paced complexities of our day-to-day
existence and enter a world of beautiful simplicities that epitomizes
Expedition Adventure Racing.
Stage 1, Brewster Glacier trek, 5,5hrs, 2000m of ascent. 2:45 am – the alarm clock goes off. Not my preferred time to get up. We did not sleep that well, as too excited to finally start. The coaches transferred us to the start line on west coast – it started to rain. Steep climb, bitterly cold rain, strong wind, steep descent and little bit of bush-bashing nicely sums up this stage.
Stage 2, Makarora river canoe, 3hrs. Stage 2, Makarora river canoe, 3hrs. Fast transition. One of the
fastest of all the teams. In the shallow waters of Makarora river we had
trouble to keep our boat going in straight line. The river was braided and we missed
the right braid to the transition – so we had to portage those 30kg boats
loaded with gear few hundred meters to the transition. Not an easy job. Emily
pulled a muscle on her back.
Stage 3, Albert Burn trek, 21hrs. We felt good and jogged on
flatter section. Emily is very strong here and often leading the pack. At 3 am
we pitched our 2 person tent in rain, set up 3 alarms and slept for 30 minutes.
Yes, 30 min. Emily couldn’t sleep. The navigation was not easy in dark but
Greig did great job moving us forward. We went past few tents – teams waiting
for daylight. Steep rock-climbing up to
the checkpoint with only 30 min of sleep was quite challenging and often
freaky. Rob starts to complain about blisters on his feet- not a good sign so
early in the race. The rest of team is injury free so far.Stage 4 – Matukituki river canoe, coasteering & swimming, 6, 5 hrs. Rob and I swapped positions in the boat as we were frustrated from moving too slow during our first canoe stage. It was better and we moved quite smoothly. This stage finished with a 400m swim in cold lake to the transition. I was swimming fast to have the swim over quickly. As vegan, I don’t have much fat on my body, so I did get very cold so Greig helped me to warm up in transition. 5 min in the sleeping bag and some food later I was back in the zone – assembling my bike for the next stage.
Stage 5 – Griffel Range MTB, 31hrs, ascent 2600 m. Blisters on Robs feet are getting worst - had to get medical help in transition. This was a long stage for us. We needed to sleep too. It was a warm night and we slept under some pine trees on the roadside. We got lost. Due to very strong winds on top of Pisa range we moved slowly. Biking was impossible. Often we had to lay on top of bikes, otherwise the wind would just blow them away. Very often two people had to carry one bike across exposed sections. Emily got very cold – had to hide behind rocks and put all cloth we carried on. Then Rob started to get flat tires – one after another. Ran out of 26” tubes so had to use 29” tubes for his 26” wheels. Not a good stage for us.
Stage 6 – Kayak Lake Wakatipu, 5hrs. We slept in transition for another 3hrs before we set off paddling into southerly winds. The wind died off and we were finding all checkpoints quite easy.
Stage 7 – Garvie Mountain trek, 22hrs, ascent 3000m. My favourite part of the race – never ending climbs, mountain lakes, lots of swamps and just overall breath-taking scenery. Emily and I started to get sore knees. We took painkillers if we wanted to move fast or run. Rob was the same. When it got dark, the blistery cold winds at 1600m made us to put all the cloth we had on. Greig’s navigation was spot on and we went past two teams who got lost in the dark night, cloud and swamps. The “sleepmonster” was creeping in so we pitch our tent in rain and slept for 90 min. Steep descent down to the bike transition took another toll on our already sore knees.
Stage 8 – Old Man Range Mtb, 23hrs, ascent 2300m. After that steep descent, blisters on Rob’s feet got worst – he had to have a medic to look at them. It took 25 min, but was worth it. When we got the maps for this stage we were pleasantly surprised – there was a 17 points orienteering stage, as part of this Mtb stage. Emily and Greig are experienced orienteers so we confidently blast through this in good time of about 5hrs. Then we started 1000m push a bike on steep, rough un-rideable trek. No teams ahead or behind us. Just us, on the highest public road in New Zealand at 1600m. Beautiful sunny day, never-ending technical biking on slabs of rocks, tired bodies and stunning sunset. Full moon lit the trek ahead of us. It got cold. We found a hut and slept for 90min. In the early morning we arrived at the last transition.
Stage 9 – Kayak Lake Wanaka, 12hrs. I thought it was going to be an easy 8hr paddle to the finish. How wrong I was. It turned out to be the most dramatic stage. Strong winds caused few meter swell on the lake. The boats were knocked around like a match in a washing machine. No safety boats around. It got to the point that it was safer to land on beach and wait little bit for the lake to calm. Using our yellow brick we sent a massage to HQ that we are OK and waiting for safer condition to continue. In about 2hrs, two safety guys showed up and told us that we are the last team on full course, that everyone else has been put on shortened kayak leg due to rough lake condition and that the weather is going to get worst. So we decided to face the wind and carry on. We capsized once – not an enjoyable experience in big swell.
After 132hrs we cross the finish line in 5th place. It was a great feeling to finish together with your team mates. We were tired, sleepy, bruised. All those hours of training, planning and preparation. It all made sense now. It was all worth it.
Team ChimpanzeeBar at the finishline.
