Breakdown of the Baviaans Leg

Adam Rose / 14.05.2017

OK, herewith the nitty gritty:

• Teams can’t enter the canyon before 4am Monday morning.
• They can sleep in TA5, or en route to CP17, or at CP17.
• After entering, teams must follow the canyon until they exit at CP21.
• On that leg, teams are not allowed to be moving after 6pm.
• Teams should stop when it’s wise, if it gets dark before 6pm, especially in deeper parts of the canyon where you are in shadow. There’s no point in pushing beyond 5:45pm if thick brush lies ahead, as that’s a recipe for bad things to happen.
• On that leg, teams cannot begin moving before 6:45am.
• Stephan only took a litre bottle with him for the trek.
• He drank from the river occasionally, and was fine, but admits it might have been due to his “African tummy”, so other teams can do that at their own risk.
• Teams can make fires at night in the canyon to stay warm, but only between CP17 and CP20. After CP20, the going is rocky, bare of firewood, hard underfoot, so teams are discouraged from stopping there overnight, and must not make fires.
• There isn’t any water between CP20 and 21.
• At night, teams must be careful not to leave food out, or their packs at a distance from the sleeping location, as baboons will scavenge, and one could wake up without a viable pack to use.
• After CP17, the water level will be knee deep at most….
• Except, immediately after leaving CP17, there is a deep, 5-metre-long pool, which racers will have to swim. Stephan recommends teams go naked, as wet clothing in a cold wind in the mountains isn’t wise. And it’s always windy up there. Photos to follow.
• From CP20 to 21, teams should stick to the red path marked on the OS map, not meander into the unknown.
• The chance of seeing game is high, as animals follow the canyon bed, gradually being funnelled into narrower sections, hence the need to be wary of buffalo.
• If they are lucky, teams might see a leopard.
• The reason CPs 18 and 19 are highlighted on this overview map is that they are potential sleeping places, where 4x4 support vehicles will be gathered, and roaring fires on the go at night.

Teams are generally considering this stage as the crux of the expedition. The question is whether to push hard to reach it ASAP, knowing you’ll be unable to start before Monday 4am, and even if you start on time, there is virtually no chance of making it through the stage before the curfew falls. Stephan reckons the earliest anyone can get to TA5, if they follow the whole course, is 9:45pm on Sunday, so a whole chunk of sleep awaits early teams. They’ll have covered approximately 145km by that time, including 80+km on kayak, 44km on foot, and around 90km on bike. The kayaking was decreased slightly as the first kayak leg was truncated due to rough seas, but it will be a long, fast day to begin the race.

Slower teams might choose to take it easy on Sunday, knowing the dark zone is going to stop them anyway, keeping some gas in the tank for later stages.

Asking around, team Lickety Split (#6) estimate a total stage time of 38hrs, including 12hrs of sleep, though they are counting on finding either a Starbucks or a Spur, while Bloed en Omo (#7) are more optimistic at 30hrs total. Certainly, B&O won’t be able to engage in any of their creative shortcoursing during the trek, however much they might want to. Abel van der Merwe did comment that in every EA race, there’s at least one stage where he wants to take a thorny stick and use it to beat Stephan around the head.  No surprise, he suspects it will be this stage.

Team Neverest Jabberwok (#8), strong contenders for top South African team in this year’s event, are weighing up the toll it might take to blast the trek, and thereby gain a massive 12hr lead over any slower team. Hardtale (#34) consider it the principle strategic decision of the race - could dark zone sleep be used to their advantage later on?

Would it be worth it?

What would you do?

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