Egg-cellent challenges

CRAIG STEPHEN
When competitors thought about the tough challenges they would face in the Go-4-12 Youth Adventure Race, it's unlikely raw eggs would have entered their minds.
Saturday's event, the official New Zealand Secondary School Adventure Racing Championship, provided teenagers with a combination of tough physical events and problem solving.
Mountain biking, kayaking, orienteering and a trek mingled with 3-D puzzles and a variation on the egg and spoon race. Race director David Tait said the course, which took the teams just under 12 to 13 hours to complete, provided plenty of challenges.
One team who overcame more obstacles than most was Flaxmere College in the boys' section. The quartet of Michael Shaw, Julian McGregor, Lewis Samuels and Joseph Osborne-Getschlog had barely any mountain biking experience and borrowed all their equipment.
"They used some really clever tactics to gain points and ended up not incurring any penalties," Tait said.
"All the kids will have taken a lot from this event. They have learned about teamwork, overcoming obstacles and planning and using self-belief to get through the course. "One girl said it was the hardest thing she had ever done but thanked me for organising it," he said.
Karamu High's captain, Nicole Symons, 16, said teamwork helped them win the mixed section.
"Last year, when we finished fourth, we had some communication issues and not everyone was working together. But this year it was a different story and we all worked brilliantly together."
She said overcoming the steep hills on the trek and the first activity at 5.30am, where two of the team guided two blindfolded members over rough terrain, provided the greatest challenges.
The course, kept a secret until the start, began with a mystery activity with teams overcoming hurdles to find clues. This involved solving a 3-D puzzle and the clues led to a raw egg which the teams had to carry all the way along the course without breaking it.
The teams then paddled along a section of the Tukituki River, mountain biking up to the 646-metre Mt Kahuranaki, and completing four optional activities, including two orienteering courses, an intense obstacle course and archery.
After completing as many of these activities as they wished, the teams trekked back to Camp David base near Havelock North.
The boys' section was won by defending champions New Plymouth Boys High with 5390 points, way ahead of Opunake 2. The girls section was won by Napier Girls' High School, who competed under the name of KRAMmaz, based on their initials. Avril Turvey, Rachel Miller, Madeline Driver and Kim Dodd, amassed 4040 points, with Havelock North High second on 3700 and New Plymouth Girls' High third.
In the mixed section, Karamu High (the Painkillers) took out first spot ahead of Whakatane while the Project K quartet were fourth.