When a new event pops up on the calendar and it’s a part of the Mountain Designs sponsored ARWS Oceania series the Mountain Designs Wild Women jumped at the chance to be a part of the event in Canberra.
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| Mountain Designs Wild Women - Ash, Kim, Cass, Del |
Mountain Designs Wild Women
Kim Beckinsale
Cass Kimlin
Del Lloyd
Ashild Kridge
This was the first time that we have had this team combination, so we were all very excited to get to race together and were hoping we would ride some of the Stromlo MTB trails and paddle the Murrumbidgee River. When the logistics planner was released 5 days out from the event, this looked highly likely. We had a meet up via zoom prior to travelling to the event, as Cass had not met Del, and Dell had not met Cass or Ashild. Kim however was super confident that we would be a great combination, with Kim and Cass navigating, Ash and Del on logistics and ferreting duties.
We arranged to stay close to HQ, so by midday Friday we had all arrived and spent the afternoon organising our 2 boxes and ensuring we had plenty of gear options, as rain was predicted! The Bike Drop (and Box A) was announced as the Uriarra Crossing Picnic Area on the Murrumbidgee River! So, this was TA 2 – the finish of the paddle – how exciting! We enjoyed a team dinner and then Del embarked on a quick trip to Officeworks – mainly to get bulldog clips for her map-board. She arrived home forgetting to purchase the clips but did manage to make a bento box out of Velcro, zip ties and a pencil case. Kim suggested then that Del use rubber bands on the map board…. great improvising….one of the very important skills of AR. Before going to sleep we completed a final check that we had all the gear in the right places and enough AYUP Batteries, Mountain Designs socks and thermals to get us through the night!
Race day, course reveal and team photos
It was a rather cool overcast morning and after arriving at HQ, we all had to put puffy jackets on over our race kit, while we were preparing our maps. We did manage to take them off for the photo, but even with jackets on were shivering while marking up maps and listening to the pre-event briefing. The course looked achievable on paper, and we were happy to be starting with a run, so we might warm up as we were freezing!
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| Looking at the maps and planning a course |
The Start - click on the link to see the action
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| Mountain Designs Wild Women on the start line |
Leg 1 & 2 Trek 12k & Paddle 12k Stromlo and the Murrumbidgee
We started the race on the crit racing track at the Stromlo, but the MTB trails were not to be used (just crossed) for this leg. There were plenty of route choices and some nice off-track running on the route up over the hill and down to the river. We had 9 CPs on the leg, 5 in the MTB park and the others in rough open land towards the riverbank. We had a great start and found all the CPs in good time but were super impressed to see Team Adventurethon Australia paddling the river before we had even made it to CP 8, they must have been super-fast!
Upon arrival at the TA, we decided to put on some extra layers to keep us warm and leave our shoes, so we would not need to carry on the bike. We opted to carry our jackets in our PFDs ready for quick access if we were freezing.
A quick video of Mountain Designs Wild Women in transition
The paddle was so much fun, we had to get in and out of the kayaks quite a bit as, we could not see the submerged rocks until we hit them and then the kayaks spun around in many directions. The water temperature was not too freezing, so we all had a great time, looking for the 2CPs on the south of the river back and chatting to some locals fishing near CP10. Upon arrival at the TA, we did a full change into dry gear for the next MTB leg.
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| Teams paddle the Murrumbidgee River |
Leg 3 & 4 MTB 40k & Trek 7k with Mystery CPs – Uriarra Forest to Cotter Campground
The MTB leg included one extra CP for the teams who had entered the Oceania Championship. On paper CP 14 looked like a hike-a-bike. Some teams rode around the long way, but we opted for the shorter hike-a-bike route which took us 45 minutes. Kim started singing one of Del’s favourites ‘On top of the World’ by Imagine Dragons…. but Del was not quite in the singing mood! Ashild helped Del out a bit by hooking her up to the towline for the second part of the ascent. We ditched the bikes when we connected with a larger fire trail and hiked, without bikes to the CP at the summit. The route to TA 2 looked straight forward on paper, but typically many of the tracks were not there, so we had to just keep changing our planned route a few times. It was pretty fast as it was mostly downhill, a great reward for all of our hard work earlier.
We arrived at TA 2 just before dark, marked up our mystery CP on the map and found out we would have an Archery challenge when we returned to the TA. There were thus 8 CPs all up and this proved to be the most adventurous part the event for us! We planned to attack the course in the order I, J, K, L, M, then finish with Mystery CP then G & H. I and J were very straight forward, but K stumped us for a bit. The CP was marked in a creek; however, the CP description was – Lookout Cotter Cave N Corner post no flag. We had been informed that the punch had been missing and to take a photo. We were up the creek line when Cass spotted the lookout, but Kim was not 100% convinced there was not something else as the centre of the CP circle was in the creek. Del suggested there must be a track to lookout, but Kim looked at the map and if was to the North. We were surrounded in the creek by thick blackberry bushes when Kim said, well let’s just go up there then….it was ugly and nasty…. but we just put on our tough wild women boots and bashed our way up quite a steep rocky cliff! Kim then found the cave, the location of the CP and …. a little trail right to the lookout! We took this trail back down to the main track, as there was no way we were going to bash our way out on our planned route. We then headed for L and after a bit of a grid search found the CP on the spur. M was bit more challenging as the track which we planned to use as our attack point did not exist, so we ended up having to hike in on a bearing to find it. Lucky the bush was not as thick as around K, and we found the CP with some great scouting and teamwork. Del was asking ‘what is the description’…Spur…Kim and Cass answered…’Spur’. We thought Dell was hard of hearing at this point as she asked these 3 more times, only to realise she was asking ‘what is the direction of the spur’…. which was a very good question which helped those without map in hand.
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| Leg 4 - Trek Map |
After a short run back towards the TA we had 2 CPs and a mystery question to go. We located these relatively quickly and happy with our downhill finish. Upon return to the TA, we were able to answer the mystery question (Answer – Accountant) and then headed to the Archery! Kim decided that the girls who had not done archery should have a go first, well why not, as AR is about having fun just as much as racing. Ash and Del both had a few goes each and then decided to hand over the PE teachers – Cass and Kim, who managed to get one on the board each. So, now it was time to get out onto the next leg.
Leg 5 & 6 MTB 16k & Paddle 12k - Cotter Campground to Lake Burley Griffin via Stromlo
We were at least 1 hour ahead of our planned timings, which always seems to lift the team spirit. We were heavily loaded up with gear as we had to now carry our shoes, we enjoyed some coke before we left the TA, so we did not have to carry it and soon we were riding along the fire trails to the south of Mt Stromlo and ready to jump onto the Bicentennial trail which would take us to the next TA on lake Burley Griffin. Ashild had ridden this trail into the city on her arrival on Thursday, so that was such a bonus, especially at night. It was a super-fast ride to the lake, and we were stoked that it was not raining! We still put on thermals and waterproof top and bottoms to protect from the wind and paddle splash.
There were two extra CPs for the ARWS Champs on this leg which took us right past Parliament House / War Memorial avenues up to the National Carillion. Del was keeping Kim and the rest of the team awake by playing a few games…. ‘I spy with my little eye’ and then ‘how many words can we get out of the letter P’. This kept us alert and awake, Kim setting the bearings and Cass and Ash were setting a good pace in front allowing for great wash riding. Canberra by night was very pretty, especially the lights of the National Museum of Australia. The only CP on this leg that was a bit tricky was our final CP ’O’…. because it was hard to see the map at night and there was a little land mass that it was tucked behind. Cass spotted this and soon we were on our way back to the TA. All the officials at the TAs throughout the event were super helpful and hearing the ‘Wild Women Do’ song as we carried our kayaks up onto the bank was definitely uplifting! We made a full change back into dry clothes that we had on before the paddle before heading off on the next leg.
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| Leg 6 - Paddle Map |
Leg 7 & 8 to the Finish – Trek 10k & MTB 35k - National Arboretum and the Stromlo Trails
Most of this trek was in the National Arboretum and it was still dark. We were very happy, though, that we were unlikely to encounter more blackberry bushes as most of this would be on trails in plantation areas. There were 6 CPs on this leg with CP T and Y extras for the Oceania Championships. Our course was Z, T, U, V, X and Y – Cass took the lead as she could see the best, Del was getting a bit of assistance from Ashild by grabbing onto her pack strap…while Kim was trotting along following the map as well. It’s never that easy running after paddling, but we were going well and we caught up with a few teams out there, which was especially helpful as they were locals! We were not 100% sure whether we were meant to go off track, but other teams were, so we decided to as well, but we did choose our own routes. We found all the CPs easily, despite CP X being a bit off – Cass and I seemed to look at a blue post and there was the punch…. Despite us thinking it was meant to be the next track down the spur…anyway bonus…we got it. It was a long run back to the TA after locating Y, but we just kept shuffling away excited to think, we were about to head for home.
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| Leg 7 Trek Map |
The final leg was a super-fast bike path ride almost the same way back that we had travelled before, finishing with 6 CPs in the Stromlo trails. Ashild and Kim had both done a bit of a ride upon arrival, so were somewhat familiar with some of the trails and thus, when deciding on the route during map planning were confident that we should not have too much trouble. Well, Ash was on fire and basically, we just had to follow, Kim had the maps and Ash would take a quick look and then go to the next CP. It seemed like there was a bit of a race to the finish as the male pair team that were had been crossing paths with all race; were now just behind us after we found CP B, but then they got ahead of us somehow between C and D! We think because we had too much fun riding the Pork Barrel Trail just one intersection too far! We enjoyed the green trails – White Gums, Ringtail, Breakout Muck Raker to E and F before finishing off on Old Duffy Descent.
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| Mountain Designs Wild Women finish on bikes |
The finish line
The Mountain Designs Wild Women crossed the finish line just after 7.30am with smiles from ear to ear…. because we had successfully completed the full Top Dog 24 Oceania Championship course (finding all the CPs) 3 hours ahead of our schedule, 4th across the line, 3rd 4-person team and 1st Women’s Team.
As captain of the Mountain Designs Wild Women, Kim Beckinsale would like to thank the girls for taking the time out of their busy schedules to make their way down to the ACT to fly the Mountain Designs flag, especially Ashild who got the call up to the team less than 3 weeks before. You are all amazing women and fabulous to race with.
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| It's always a great feeling to finish, knowing you have found every CP! |
To check out the full results and live tracking click the link TopDog2023_Live Tracking
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| Mountain Designs Wild Women were Team 7 |
Thanks to our great sponsors and supporters – Mountain Designs, Ay Up Lighting Systems, Venture Cycles and Tri Adventure for continuing to support women in this sport and thanks to Chris Dixon and the Wild & Co officials and volunteers for helping to ensure that this new adventure race was such a great success. Well done to everyone who had the courage to enter the race and show up on the day, we hope you had a great time out there and look forward to crossing paths sometime soon!
The next big event on the calendar for the Mountain Designs Wild Women is the Legend Expedition Race at the end of February 2024, so we will look forward to seeing some of you there!
