Extreme Corporate Challenge I - The Desert (cont'd)

Day 4 - Finke to The Ruins

Let the real challenge begins – 88kms  

The Day began with us being reminded of the 12 young people who will tragically take their own lives this week symbolised by the crosses placed at the start.  The route now follows the old Ghan railway back to Alice Springs.  230km of sand, corrugation and hills.

Justine, the desert queen from Vodafone, won the 5km time trial – 90% of the track dominated by walking.  We crossed the oldest water course in the world, the Finke River, by foot – it was dry.  The sand continued, the vehicles got bogged, we walked..and walked..and walked.

We had done 40km in 5 ½ hours.  A quick stop for lunch and we headed off again back into the sand, and back into the routine of walking.  For the first 10kms after lunch we walked 8 of them and then the hill came.  The hill went on for 24kms, blind summit after blind summit and most of it we had to walk.  By 4 o’clock, we had 2 ½ hours of sun light and 26kms to go and we had been averaging 7 kms/hr, so we knew then that we would be finishing after dark – and we were right.

The cruel irony was for the first time we desperately wanted to get on our bikes and we couldn’t.  When the hill ended and the sand subsided, the corrugations started.  Like a million speed humps lined up before us.  The first team was in at 7:30, 45 minutes after dark.  By 10:30 the last team struggled in, having been guided in by the headlights of the 4WD’s.  Despite tempting encouragement to give up the challenge and get into the cars, all the teams pushed on through the cold, the dark and their hunger.  The day that could have broke us, brought us closer together and made us proud of our teams and our performances.

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