IT Consultancy and Adventure Racing

http://www.citysafari.org.nz/

The City Safari is an annual event held around Wellington that is in it's 4th year of incorporating the use of public transport into the otherwise familiar format of a 6hr ( 3hrs also available ) point scoring Rogaine.

Having participated in the first 2 events, I was abroad last year and keen to have a race on home soil with my new partner and team mate Rachel, so we planned a weekend at home and prepared to go out and have some fun in a familiar setting.

Having an office just over the road from the Start/Finish bus located at Queen's wharf, we took the maps inside and pored over them, quickly discounting a trip to the Miramar peninsula as there weren't enough points available there, and deciding that it actually looked like we should concentrate on running between points as there were quite a large number of points available en route between the major centres.

Back to the start line for the 10 minute prologue, and reading the cluesheet told us there was a question at Shed 5, so during the time it took us to get that we would check out the map and decide on the rest of the route.

The gun went and we were allowed to look at the map, so as we headed round to the first control we decided to grab the points on the 'outer T' and then basically do a loop around the lagoon.

The great thing about the City Safari is that it is very public, and designed to get people into the sport, so you get a wide variety of people entering, and with a wide variety of approaches - from headless chickens like ourselves to the likes of Steve Gurney ambling around the course in a co costume, and we ran past several of these others on our way to the civic square.

Finding ourselves with time in hand we tried for a control by the library, but a communication error meant that we lost each other briefly - just long enough to waste some precious seconds in this short event, and when we relocated each other it was just a mad dash for the finish, frantically trying to write and sprint at the same time, and just managing to get in under 11 minutes, and so only losing 10 of our valuable points, like Nathan Fa'avae and Dennis DeMonchey who was just behind us.

A short break chatting to other regulars and then we lined up for the start and the gun went off.

There was a sizeable chunk of the field running in the same general direction as us, as we headed into the botanical gardens to pick up our first control with the heavens threatening to open above us. We arrived just after Greg and Andy, Al and Jerry, and just ahead of Nathan and Dennis ( it's not often you're ahead of world champions, so it's got to be noted really ;-) ), and then headed down Tinakori Rd, passing Andy and Greg as they waited for their Karori bus. Round the back of the British High Commission for another control and we headed off road into the Tinakori bush to find a cave and a 3rd control.

Here a slight navigational error meant that we deviated from the more direct route that Al and Jerry took to the next control, as we dropped straight back down to the road, and ran along the flat out to the next control at the Ngaio Magazines while A&J stayed high and dropped in from above.

Coming back out of the gorge and heading up towards J'Ville we saw our first piece of public transport - just heading up the hill we were heading down, so several minutes behind and validating our decision to run.

Into Khandallah via a seemingly unending set of stairs, we took the time to note a very nice looking 4WD camper van that looks like it would be ideal for our event based lifestyle.

Taking time out to have a look at the views from the top as we walked up the steep bits of hill you can see why people might want to live here, while at the same time feeling awfully exposed to the weather that Wellington is more than capable of throwing at anything exposed - as always, you pays yer money ...

Cutting through a school, Rachel didn't feel she had the time to slide the slide, and we kept on jogging, through our 2nd exposure to the public and we were off climbing again, heading up Jubilee Rd, which surely must provide some competition for XXMontague?XX St in Dunedin!

Down into Nairnville park we saw Al & Jerry coming the other way and hoped they enjoyed the hill climb as we dropped into a quick out and back into Kandy Crescent, and then round the roads, through Khandallah School and into Khandallah Reserve.

It was a big day on Mt Kaukau, and we almost stopped to sample the wares at the sausage sizzle in the park that was there to feed the hordes of kids taking up the challenge of scaling Kaukau on the same day as a bunch of idiots in Lycra were trying to set PBs up it.

A number of people thought that the towing system we were using looked like a fantastic idea, and we certainly made good time to the top, despite the throngs.

The clue at the top was beside the transmitter station, and I nearly came a cropper crossing the fence that surrounded it - jumping onto the top of the steps that crossed the fence line I landed on the top to discover that the backside was missing, and shouted a warning as the steps began to fall over and I quickly jumped back off. The fence was quite strong enough to hold the steps up without my weight on them, so they cunningly reset to looking perfectly normal for the next victim ;-)

Down off Kaukau along the ridgeline, there were a couple of teams visible in front of us and a couple coming the other way - including Nathan and Dennis who didn't believe me when I told them to head for the big spikey thing on the top of the hill.

Dropping down into Ngaio it was another road run around familiar streets as we passed within 100 yards of my old house ( to counter the similar proximity to Rach's old house earlier ), and my blindness at missing a control was offset by Rachel's vision even though a communication fook up meant we still lost a minute or so.

A couple more controls and we considered catching a train, but figured for 1 stop that the chances of it arriving at the right time were minimal, so it was back to road running for the grind back up on to the ridgeline.

The halfway point was celebrated asking another team whether they felt as enthusiastic as we did given there were another 3 hours to go, and then climbing, climbing, climbing up a dirt track overlooking our house.

We exchanged pleasantries with a couple of the 3 hour teams that were out on the Northern walkway, who all looked to be enjoying their time in the outdoors with their kids/parents, and then it was just heads down for the run through to Karori along the ridge.

Deciding to miss out on a drop and reclimb, we headed down into Karori Park where there was a bus about to head back into town, so we redoubled our efforts to snatch a quick control on Blakey and joined 3 or 4 other teams, including Dave,Cush and Conan at the bus stop.

3 hours 50 in and we jumped on our first bus heading into town, rather than start climbing again and heading round the Karori Sanctuary, so we had a chat to Cush and Dave who were unfortunately abandoning the event due to pain, and planned how we would spend the last 2 hours.

Having initially decided to avoid Miramar, we agreed to follow my plan of heading out that way, doing a 40 minute or so run, and get the airport flyer back into town.

This would get us back into town dead on the 15:45 finish of the event - a risky approach, but one that I hoped would be mitigated by the Airport Flyer being a 'special' service, and therefore hopefully slightly more likely to be on time.

In the meantime though we had to get out there, so after dropping D&C&C off in town we carried on and jumped off the bus at the hospital, very comically grabbed a 40 point control by the Scottish Athletic clubrooms and returned to the hospital.

Getting off the bus after about 40 minutes stationary we must have looked much more like a couple returning to the hospital for hip replacement checkups than supposed athletes as the hobbling gave way to shuffling and then eventually half jogging as the joints and muscles realised that it wasn't time for retirement yet.

Watching a couple of busses go past as we waited for a specific one was quite tortuous, as normally in these events stationary time is dead time, but our patience was soon rewarded as a bus arrived that would drop us off on Broadway in Seatoun, and we did a bit of stretching and moving on this bus to avoid providing a cripple show for local residents.

Off the bus and we did an awfully good impression of a pair of runners as we headed around our little loop that saw us climb up to the eastern walkway and back down past the ataturk memorial, searching for answers and writing them down as we went, before coming out once more on the flat at the Wahine memorial park for our run around the heads.

Once more the efficacy of the towing system was commented on as we ran around towards the airport passing Sunday joggers bouncing along to their ipods ( why bother running with someone if you're going to cocoon yourself in your own aural world? for the added nasal intrusion? ).

We followed an airport flyer into the airport, and Rachel commented on how surreal it felt to be running across an airport carpark - a location associated with cars, busses, planes and, for her, work. We certainly seemed to get a few odd looks as we decided to continue to our final checkpoint by running past the assembled Taxi and shuttle drivers congregated outside arrivals.

Round to the airport tunnel and we collected our last control from beside the airport fence and proceeded to Coutts St to await the bus that would be along in about 2 minutes. 3 minutes later we moved along to Rongotai College, wanting to be at a major stop to ensure the bus would see us. Where we waited again.

About 7 or 8 minutes late the bus rounded the corner and we bounded on, urging the doors to shut, and the driver to ignore further passengers and red lights.

Unfortunately we appeared to have been picked by a bus driver that seemed quite attentive to other road users, potential passengers and even the road code. Damn ;-)

Oh well, we knew it was going to be tight, so plan B was going to have to be enacted - as soon as we got to Courtenay Place we were out the doors and running as hard as we could given the previous 5 hours and 58 minutes of activity, and hot-footed it around the waterfront, past Te Papa, and into the finish shoot, arriving within the 4 minute bracket, to lose 40 of our points, and once again to be followed in by Nathan and Dennis.

We summed up our points and handed the score sheet in before heading for a cup of tea and change of clothes at the office before coming back to mill around, and be told that Rachel no longer looked like Death - unlike when she had crossed the finish line.

Thankfully she felt that it was all worthwhile as we had quite convincingly taken out the mixed category, ending up with 980 points, only 35 less than the overall winners Greg & Andy, and within 25 or Nathan & Dennis and Al & Jerry ( who had totally avoided public transport ). A pretty good effort all round, and yes the 4 minutes cost us the overall win, but I doubt we were the only people to suffer from a late bus, so that was the cookie, and it had crumbled!