Arrived at Alice Springs around Lunchtime. Loaded all the bikes and swags (bedding) on the trucks and preceded in convoy of 18 4WD’s to Camp One just north of Erldunda.
Job One
was to go and collect firewood. So everybody raced out into the bush, pushing
down dead trees like wild elephants. Cliff Lyons (NRL Team) decided to push the
dead trees down with his bulbar of his 4WD hire car and ended up puncturing the
washer reservoir with the first tree he tried to push down – great start to our
arrival!
Stoked up the fires, set up our swags (very basic piece of canvas draped over a sleeping bag), and proceeded to set up the bikes ready for Day One. Quite a few of the bikes had minor damage in transit so some ingenuity was required to get everyone ready.
Dinner consisted of Tomato Soup, Spag Bog, and plenty of nervous laughs around the campfire in anticipation of the next morning.
Crashed for bed around 10pm and lay in our swags feeling like a falafel and stared up at the magnificent stars until morning.
Day 1
Woke at 5am (about 5 degrees), to Queen being blasted from Aiden’s 4WD. There was a flurry of activity as fires were re-stoked, breakfast wolfed down and we hastily dressed in our team outfits ready for the big day.
7am consisted of captains of teams being briefed for the challenge ahead which was to be a five kilometre time trial for the captains with the rest of their respective teams commencing in a staggered start about 5 minutes after. After the team captains reached the 5km mark, they were to wait for their teams to reach them before proceeding. Ralph from the Globalstar team was first across the line. Once the teams regrouped they were given a number of challenges to complete in a treasure hunt type, clue-gathering manner.
The first leg (to lunchtime) consisted of a 72km ride through beautiful scenery and a very difficult track. The track was littered with a series of deep sand sections, which had to be traversed using a “spinning” technique involving very high cadence cycling. The impact of this high cadence cycling took its toll on all of the teams.
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The first team to complete the first leg was the Wallaby Classic team who arrived after around 5 ˝ hours of cycling. The rest of the teams completed this leg between 5 ˝ and 6 ˝ hours.
Everybody chowed down for a brief lunch, recovery and bike maintenance session before setting off for the second leg of 24kms, which began at 3:30pm. The 24km leg was an out and back leg and at the half way point there was an opportunity to take a well earned swim (paddle) in the Finke River. Once everyone had had a swim they returned back to Camp two, just outside Idracowra.
Overall most of the teams are feeling pretty good and looking forward to the rest of this great adventure – but it’s early days yet and anything can happen!
One thing is for sure, the Simpson Desert has earned our respect very quickly.
