I love it…..adventure racing that is.  If I wasn’t photographing these events I’d be out there with them and the Denmark Adventure Race is no exception.  Another impeccably organised race by the team from Rapid Ascent with a fantastic mix of mountainbiking, sea and river paddling, navigation and orienteering.  This years Denmark Adventure Race opened on Saturday 9th of October to 30 teams of 4 competitors each, all prepared to battle their way through around 200klms of terrain over a 2-day period.  And battle they did.  After rumours of the race being not challenging enough last year, the King of Adventure Racing himself, John Jacoby, made sure that his course layout was challenging even to the best of the field.  If I was a betting chick I would lay my money on the fact that there will be no such complaints this year!!!

With Day One racing kicking off at 8am, the WA weather blessed competitors with a beautiful sunny start.  Sunny enough it seems that the front runners were blinded enough to miss the first checkpoint of the race, setting the field almost two hours behind the anticipated schedule from the word go.  We were in for a loooooong day!  This was not a deterrent at all with competitors pushing through the stages and beating the challenges John had thrown at them.  There were were lots of laughs throughout the day and just as many groans as “paddling” stages turned into “climbing-over-logs-and-hauling-the-kayaks-over-behind-us”stages.  Navigation stages had competitors wondering why their little round thing with the red and white arrows was missing GPS co-ordinates.  One team even managed to navigate themselves in a circle 2-ish hours away from the finish line and back to a previous checkpoint.  As night-time fell, support teams, families and organisers alike eagerly awaited the teams completion of the first day.  Finally at around 8.30pm the first light spilled from the Ay-up head lights in the distance, the final team of the evening crossing the finish line at around 1245am Sunday morning.

With a 6am start on the Sunday morning there was a distinct zombie feeling at the Day Two start line.  The weather had turned and left one wondering if we had actually been transported to Melbourne overnight.  The day started with competitors “scavenging” for checkpoints around Denmark town.  Some early sheep chasing (no this is not a dig at the NZ’er’s who were racing), had racers soon discovering that getting on the wrong side of some of the Denmark farmers was not such a good idea even if it meant a short-cut to the nearest checkpoint.  Even the great John Jacoby looked small compared to a 6’5″ farmer on a rampage!!  The race continued through to Green’s Pool and along the coastline.  With the weather now well and truly disgusting I was left drenched to the bone for the remainder of the day.  The decision to protect my cameras over me has come back to haunt me with a good dose of the flu hitting mid-week.  I am sure though that many of the competitors have found themselves in the same situation.  At least my car had heating driving from location to location.  The inlet however had no such consideration for the competitors, leaving them battling against rough swell to carry through to the final leg of the race.  Despite the weather, racers were coming past me on the final leg with huge waves and smiles for the camera – probably more out of relief to be so close to the end.  This positive attitude is something that I have come to expect and respect about Adventure Racers.

Overall, I think it would be fair to say that everyone involved had an amazing, fun weekend.  Check out some of the photos from the event below or head to http://www.rapidascent.com.au/greatsouthern/ to view them all.