A few comments from the 12/24 hour

Just a quickie to say what a great job all the vollies did and whoever
organised them. It was lovely to have them excitedly welcome us into Transition area
at 4am! Anna Kricker, Lactic Tactics

The Kiwi Chucks are still jumping up and down with glee at having finished the 24 hour race in less than 24 hours, without missing a checkpoint. They have been raving about what an awesome weekend it was...."we had an absolute blast. and Queanbeyan has never looked so good (actually neither has Maccers in Erindale).

Also, I wanted to pass on our thanks to all the friendly blokes out there who helped us along the way: the guy in Sparrow Hill who helped us try and fix Anna's bike seat after her bike (aka the Red Bull) got a bit excited and charged into a tree; the team who helped us carry the kayak through part of the portage (our efforts to look like we were coping just fine having obviously failed dismally); and the bloke who helped us put the very last bit of my tyre back on, after The Great Character-Building Thorn Disaster of 2006 at checkpoint 27. Come to think of it, I should probably also thank our friends from Fugahwe, who were kind enough to turn up in the Jerrabomberra Wetlands (aka cow poo swamp) at the same time as us and led the way straight to checkpoint 43. Nice one Keith, its just a pity you walked too fast for us to keep up all the way round!

Thanks also to all those phantom teams who emerged out of the dark and called out to say hello as they were on their way back to the kayak drop at Acton, while we were still churning our way out (yay the Triple Js!). oh and your volunteers were great - the party people rocked. Paula Wilson, Kiwi chucks

Hi Tom, Alina and all the helpers.

The weekend's race was fantastic fun! For me, the highlights were;

Riding the Sparrow Hill single tracks
the abseil
arriving at the party - they were so supportive and friendly!
the debacle pizza - brilliant!
the kickbikes - we had a great time whizzing around Civic and across to the Art gallery

The 12 hour course was very good, and I don't think it was too short. We took our time and had plenty of long stops and a good team would have been 4 or so hours quicker.

I'm always amazed at the huge logistics that these races require. It's a tremendous effort and congratulations.

Finally, could you please post on your website some advice about tyres and how you avoid punctures. I've never experienced 3 cornered jacks in Canberra before, but I want to be better prepared next time. Anthony Scott (Scotty), CuL8tor Navig8tor

[We will put up some info on avoiding punctures shortly - perhaps we will ask arocshop.com.au as they were one of the only teams that got through unscathed]

Just wanted to say thanks again on behalf of our team for the fantastic 24hr race. We had a blast and really enjoyed the tough sections as well as the more novel aspects too. Kick biking is brilliant and I’d love to get one for the odd blast down to the shops. The Waniassa party and Debacle pizza was excellent too. Tube changing contest….well, could do without that one! Ha, it was actually funny!

New experiences this time included hallucinating while paddling (lake was boiling….!) and then falling asleep paddling, something I couldn’t imagine is possible until I did it.

Phil Walker, AROC around the clock

Thanks again for a 'fun' weekend. I especially like the portage section, particularly when we carried the kayak (as light as they are) through to CP 27 - ie missed the track back down to the river by about 400m - ie an additional 800m carry (yah!).

Nothing wrong with our nav skills, but our straight eyesight and observation skills could do with a brushing-up. David Grimes, Mandatory Exhaustion

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