Home made corflute map boards

We've used home made map boards in all races since we started racing as "Bear Hunt". These are the instructions to make one. 

Bear Hunt XPD Tropics Race Report

It was a bit tricky to get a full team to XPD this year. Caroline had started organising the team late last year, and flights were booked in January for Caroline, Minh-Tam, Mica and Craig. As things turned out, Craig needed to be replaced at late notice and Michael stepped in, despite only recently recovering from an ankle injury. Caroline was injured and hasn’t ridden a bike since April, therefore clearly nervous about how she would go.

We got to Townsville with all our gear and went on the usual shopping spree, buying just over 150 “snack units”, 25 or so “meal units” and 14 transition meals each in anticipation of the course.

When the course was released, we saw that it was going to be hard on the legs, and no bike until a fair way in. Normally we think of the bike legs as recovery, but this would be too late here. We would have to try and sleep on the hiking legs, or in transition, if possible.

Leg 1: Ocean kayak from Townsville Strand to Magnetic island.

We started at a slightly higher pace than we would normally paddle at, and after a couple of km settled into a consistent speed. The sea was bouncy but the boats were largely within our control. We weren't able to paddle close together enough to chat during the paddle, conversation consisted mainly of shouting. We witnessed one person from another team capsizing.

At about half-way we noticed that we looked to be at the end of the first pack, with a large number of boats a fair way behind us. Looking good. We took only Minh-Tam’s and Mica’s pack with us to Magnetic Island to make it easier on the coasteering and SUP sections later on.

We landed at the island and had a quick transition to the trek and left TA at the same time a Goldfish and before That’s Cray.

Leg 2: Coasteering at Magnetic Island, with snorkeling and stand-up-paddle boarding.

Coasteering was tricky and we were slow. We were overtaken by That's Cray and lots of other teams that were more confident boulder hopping (Caroline wore through the seat of her tights). We kept seeing team Rubicon on the various coasteering sections on this trek, but eventually they left us behind. We did pretty well on the first snorkel, found the markers under water easily and enjoyed this lunchtime swim.

Hiking and bush bashing was fine and we gradually improved at spotting trees with nests of green ants in them.

We got to the second set of snorkel checkpoints in the afternoon and found that it was a bit harder. The water was much cloudier, but there were lots of teams doing this one at the same time as us and we found one checkpoint thanks to another teams’ calls for attention.

As the evening progressed, we continued hiking across Magnetic Island, it's a beautiful place. Mike almost navigated us from CP6 to CP8 because he had the map folded over and didn’t see CP7. This resulted in a slight detour, but we later found out that the direct route from CP6 to CP7 would have been really hard anyway. The forts on the island are interesting, they were built in WW2.

We finally arrived at stand up paddle boarding at 8pm or so, we were the last team in to attempt it. We were told that teams behind us were short-cutting through the island to the end of the leg.

We made really good time on the SUPs by having Michael and Caroline holding the boards together, and Mica and Minh-Tam paddling on either side. We maintained good pace and paddled in an almost straight line across Horseshoe Bay for 45 minutes. We saw phosphorescent plankton with every paddle stroke and gazed at the stars.

In the next hiking section, Minh-Tam almost stepped on a curled-up death adder, but we all made it past without disturbing it.

Progress to the end of the leg was slow and we had some issues finding the last CP of this leg as we were all falling asleep, despite it being daylight again. Minh-Tam was hallucinating checkpoint flags, which wasn’t helpful. We finally arrived at the start of the long ocean paddle at 9 or so, well after the main pack had left. A second safety boat escort was organised for 10:30 for us and the other teams still on Magnetic Island. Michael and Mica’s boat was nowhere to be found, someone else must have taken it by accident, so they had to set up the foot pegs and so on on another boat. Sadly, this also meant that our tow rope and safety flare were missing (and are still missing! If you nicked our Sea to Summit Sea Kayak tow line, please return it, because it’s not ours!). We got a nap of about 10 minutes once that was all sorted out.

Leg 3: Long ocean paddle.

This was the longest open water paddle for most of us, and we tried to take advantage of the wind. We made good progress and didn’t capsize! We had been warned not to paddle too close to the river mouths as that’s where the crocodiles are, so we stayed well offshore, didn’t see any crocs, and paddled closely together enough to chat.

In the evening, it became a challenge to stay awake. First Caroline needed to be stopped from dozing off. She says she was seeing a big staircase, and drapes hanging from the clouds. Mica, too, hallucinated. According to her we were paddling through ancient Greek buildings with columns and strange women were rising from the water, and later that night she saw people having a pool party next to the boat, and she woke herself up when she tried to avoid hitting the strange woman in the head with her paddle. But then later it became and all-team challenge to keep Minh-Tam awake. Silly games were invented to keep him on task pointing the boat in the right direction.

We had until 2:30 pm to reach the second checkpoint on this leg, or we would be short coursed to the TA. We didn't make the cut-off, but did paddle the 45 km to the second checkpoint and were driven the rest of the way to the TA, along with quite a few other teams. The last half-hour or so of the paddle was in total darkness, which was a bit scary in the ocean, but we were following the light of a safety boat at this point so navigation wasn't an issue. It turns out that most teams didn't make the cutoff for the paddle.

We arrived at the TA and got ready for the next trek leg as quickly as we could (which wasn't that quickly, as we were pretty cold).

Leg 4: 50 km Trek up to Paluma Range National Park

The first 10 km or so of this trek was on dirt road, and went quickly and easily in the night. The challenge started when we reached the base of the 900 m ascent up to Paluma Lake Plateau. At some point, the obvious track in front of us disagreed with the track marked on the map that ascended to the plateau, and we, along with around 5 other teams, were stumbling around in the dark trying to find the right track. We ended up backtracking a couple of km to start again from the last point we were absolutely certain of, and after some very slow checking of directions and a few dead ends, we finally found the right track. We felt a bit silly, having all seen the cairn and pink ribbon before that marked the start of the small track, but we all thought that was marking the track we were on. Never mind - Foxlees track had been found! We ascended at a slow but steady pace, and in around 3 hours had reached the top of the plateau. By the time we reached the top, dawn was breaking, and there was still a track to follow on top, though it wasn't clear which track this was on the map. Mica and Caroline started to compose their XPD round, though it was definitely still in early stages. We passed a sleeping Fully Rad, and found our way to the first Sundial, which was marked on the map, but Caroline, who had been in front for a few hours and was descending into zombie state, got quite confused by the markings (compass directions and other sundial numbers) and stopped and stared for a good while as others stepped up to try to make sense of things. Michael took the lead in finding out where the marked Sundials were for the rogaine, and it turned out that the best thing was to completely ignore the markings on the sundials and just follow the track markings on the map. After this, finding the 6 required sundials didn't take too long, but there were a couple of small mistakes made along the way. We can partly attribute this to the playing of games while walking and lack of concentration. We stopped at the Hut to refill water from the creek and use the toilet.

After collecting the rogaine checkpoints, Mica lead the team down the track towards Paluma where the TA was. It took much longer than expected, and there were many confusing track signs along the way. After nightfall, we came across another team stumbling back along the same track, saying that the track ended at a waterfall and they weren't quite sure where to go from here, but Mica confidently lead on and found a way to continue. We crossed the waterfall by climbing over some rocks where a bridge used to be.

Some hours later, still in the dark, we stumbled into TA, where we saw our bikes for the first time. Team Rusty Ironman The Yogis arrived there almost at the same time as us, and there were several other teams sleeping between bike boxes in the Paluma community Hall. The Hall had a kitchen with hot water and microwave, so it was very tempting to stick around for longer than needed. We set up our bikes, ate some food, and decided to sleep for a little while at TA in the warmth of the hall, where other teams were doing the same. There was a sign on the door: "Important: checkpoint 19 is about 800 m down the track from where it is marked according to some teams". Probably a sign we should remember, huh?

Leg 5: 50 km bike ride

We left in the early hours of pre-dawn morning. It felt so good to be on the bikes! Mica sped off and the others had trouble keeping up with her. Caroline navigated the way to the first checkpoint, and the team were forced to battle through thick scrub to the checkpoint that was a few hundred m off the road, down in a watercourse. On the way back up, the team found a good track to use instead. Michael continued navigating from there, and here we had the only challenging riding of the entire race, with some not-quite-single-track up a very steep spur with some roots and rocks to make it more challenging. It was possibly the highest our heart rates got all race. It turns out that we were once again back in the area of the rogaine from the leg before, and we set about finding checkpoint 19 (sundial 23). Michael was confident that he had lead us to the correct spot, but the checkpoint wasn't there. We wasted about 20 minutes riding back down the path and slowly going over it again to look for any junctions we had missed until finally Caroline remembered the sign on the door at TA - 800 m further down the track! We found it quickly after this, and were kicking ourselves a little for forgetting that important information.

The next checkpoint was on a nice piece of single track, which Mike confidently navigated us to and we found its entrance marked by a sleeping team snoring right on the corner. We continued our ride, which was now on privately-owned land, as dawn broke. This was a beautiful moment - just a few minutes ago we had been in rainforest, and now we could see the dry outback stretched out in front of us. The colours at sunrise were amazing and the morning was quite cold and still - we all took a moment to appreciate how beautiful it was and remarked that this would be one of the strong memories we would take away with us. Fairly soon afterwards, we rolled into transition.

Leg 6: Running River trek

By the time we left transition, it was 8am and not cold any more. The start of this trek was on road, and Mica and Caroline continued working on the XPD round. Minh-Tam navigated the team to the first checkpoint in the river. It was a beautiful river, wide, with boulders along the edges, and dry around. It seems unfair that such a place is private property! We needed to travel along the river for a while before ascending up the steep sides to find the next checkpoint, and the team decided that swimming through some of the pools would be faster than rock-hopping around, so we took the plunge in the cool water and, a few hyperventilations later, swam on. It was at this point that another poor nav decision arose - putting the map away to keep it relatively dry so we didn't refer to it as we travelled through the river. We would pay for this later!

At some point (and we didn't really know which point), it was decided that we should leave the river and ascend up the side to a ridge where we could attack the next checkpoint. We did so, and took a bearing onto another ridge in the distance. It looked incredibly steep to get back down and up, but actually walking it wasn't so bad. When we finally made it to the top of the next ridge, we were expecting to see a knoll that would present to us a bright orange checkpoint - but to no avail.

We wandered around for quite a while looking for the checkpoint until we decided that it was time for a problem-solving meeting - as we had no idea where we were if we weren't at the checkpoint. After much deliberation and acceptance and then rejection of many different ideas, we finally figured out where we were. We had climbed up a much earlier spur than we had thought, and so were on a different ridge to what we expected. We figured out the right direction for the checkpoint, and slowly made our way there, though kept making the mistake of thinking that it would be closer than it was - these 1:50,000 maps were confusing! We did find it, at the same time as another team coming from a slightly different direction.

Michael was back after feeling a little deflated with the last checkpoint, and took a bearing that would lead us close to the next one and allow us to find the right gully where the checkpoint was. He did this expertly, and we found it without a problem, and even lead a few other teams in the right direction who were struggling with finding it. Mica took over part way through, and navigated us into the right gully and to the CP.

By now it was night again, and the team decided to take a two hour nap as we were all quite tired.

After being rudely awoken by the Screaming Meanie (Michael's alarm clock), we made our way back down to the river, where we walked until we came across the abseil and rock-pool swim sections. The CP officials explained the section to us, and we got underway. It was dark and cold (it was 2 am) and we weren't looking forward to swimming, but we did it quickly! The abseils were short and simple climbs down rocks with a rope but no harness, and the pools were about 30-50 m across. There were three of each. At the other side, we warmed ourselves by a fire as we changed into dry clothes.

We needed to navigate further down stream before exiting the river, and there was a lot of rock-hopping and clambering to be done. This being Caroline's kryptonite, Michael and Mica the mountain goats calmly lead her through manageable paths through the boulders. Michael looks back on this as his favourite section. Caroline does not.

Michael took the lead again, navigating the team to a wide gently sloping area full of water courses where the next checkpoint was to be. By this stage Caroline could hardly walk without falling asleep, and the navigation was tricky here at night due to lack of contours, so the team decided to take another sleep of about an hour. In the morning, it took a little time to find the checkpoint, and then we walked quickly to the TA, which was a couple of easy km away.

Leg 7: 50 km bike ride

We transitioned to the bikes quickly, but also ate some food and lubed the bikes. We had left ourselves some notes to ensure that we pack enough batteries on the bikes, as we wouldn’t see the bike boxes again at the end of the kayak, just the bikes.

This bike leg was pretty easy, all on paved road, so why not make it harder? Caroline told us to turn left out of transition instead of right, and we rode off in the wrong direction for five minutes. After completing out ten minute warm-up loop, we rode past transition again, this time in the right direction, which the photographers probably liked.

We easily found the checkpoint at the crossing of an old railway line, and then rode on towards TA in a two by two formation so that we could chat. We all agreed that we may have gone overboard with inflating our tyres, as it was quite uncomfortable on the bitumen. Eventually, we rode into transition at about 1pm.

Leg 8: 70 km Kayak

We were pretty slow to get going here. Lots of food to pack, and it was very hot in the sun. We couldn’t find the same kayaks again that we had used in previous legs, so needed to adjust the foot pedals again. A bit after 2pm we finally carried the boats down the tricky path to the water and set off. It was nice to be in the water, we were looking forward to paddling down to the Burdekin River.

It didn’t take us long to be disappointed by how little water there was in the river. Most of the rivulets and arms were too low to paddle in, and it became a challenge to pick the deepest stream and follow it, and to hop out and drag the boats as soon as it got beached on a sandbank. Minh-Tam started off navigating this leg, but as he was in the back of the boat and also steering, we switched it so that Caroline would have the map and keep track of our progress in the river, and Minh-Tam would be responsible for keeping the boat in deep-enough water and steer us through under overhanging trees and past sand banks. This worked well until nightfall, but then it became very hard to see the depth of the river, and sleep monsters were catching up with us again. Michael “discovered” a special nocturnal kind of crocodile, that only he could see. (No actual, real crocs sighted). We were all cold and decided that we’d have more luck once the sun was up again. We pulled over on a sandbank and slept until 5am. It was the most uncomfortable night’s sleep we had all race, as we had not packed a whole lot of extra clothing. We wore all our dry clothes - for Caroline that meant a jacket, leg warmers and a buff as a skirt - and wrapped ourselves in our emergency blankets and curled up into balls in our minimal tent. It was very cold.

Once the sun came up, things looked a lot better. We paddled on and dragged the boats where needed. There certainly were times when we complained about how tedious this was, but we reminded ourselves how beautiful the surroundings were. There was one bit of small rapids to cross, which was lots of fun.

Finally, we saw some of the media crew in the distance, meaning we must be close. The last kilometer or so consisted of us carrying the boats along sand banks and then up a ridge to the campground. We were happy that this was over, as it was getting dark again.

When getting the bikes ready for the next ride, we found out that we hadn’t packed enough Ay-Up batteries after all, and Michael would have to ride with just a head torch.

Leg 9: 50 km bike ride into midcamp

This bike ride was fast and easy and was just a way to get from A to B, all on a sealed road. We were getting a little tired, so we rode a little slower than we could have, but it went smoothly and we were so glad to see the lights of transition as we neared it. There was little traffic and we were able to ride two abreast and chat for almost the entire ride.

We nearly achieved our aim of 4 hours sleep at midcamp, getting 3:50 after setting up for the next long bike leg and eating our delicious hot mid camp meal. We left mid camp after a 6 hour and 10 minute stop, well rested, and eager to take on the remainder of the race.

Leg 10: 145 km bike ride

We left Charters Towers a little after 3am and rode at a good pace to where the bitumen stops and the corrugated gravel roads start. Mica was off in her own dream world for a bit and we admired the stars and the Milky Way above us as we rode. At 5:30am, we heard this huge engine noise and it seemed that dawn was creeping up very quickly behind us. A road train with a thousand lights was coming up behind us. We pulled off the road to let the beast past.

Shortly after dawn we collected a check point in a sandy, dry creek bed and we were happy that we were wearing small gaiters. More clean navigation by Caroline to the end of that map, and then Michael took over. We knew that we had left midcamp not too long before some other teams, as we had seen them getting ready. We were worried that they’d catch up to us in the tricky nav section leading up to the Burdekin River crossing, and so we tried to move quickly. Michael expertly navigated us through the network of incorrectly mapped tracks and animal paths to the spot where we should cross the river. The river crossing was tricky and slow, we tried not to get the bikes too wet and the rocks were slippery in parts. On the other side of the river, we wanted to pick up a track, but it took some time to find it. We could hear another team starting the river crossing behind us, so we wanted to get going. After some searching around we decided that the terrain was clear enough to just ride cross country to the East until we hit the track or the road, and it worked out really well. A quick stop to lube the bikes before getting on the road, and we were off towards Ravenswood.

One of the riders of the Dutch team (Moonen Packaging) caught up to us and asked if we had spare tubes, as they had already had six flat tyres. Unfortunately we were not able to help, as we all ride 29ers. We rode past the first entrance road into Ravenswood as we were not sure if it was accurately marked on the map - this resulted in a couple of kilometers detour, but took us past some of the locations that we would have to visit as part of the bike rogaine, so we knew where they were already.

In town, we saw the all-female team Kiss My Sweet Inov8 and the Dutch team hanging out at the pub enjoying burgers and beer. Tempting. But we wanted to move on and collected the bits of trivia needed for the bike rogaine in Ravenswood. When was the Post Office established, When was the Ambulance Station built? What was the name of the cyclone that destroyed large parts of the town? How many people worked in the mine and how many people lived in the little historical miner’s shack? (A family of 21!).

Not long after, the Dutch team zoomed past us, closely followed by the Argentinian team San Juan Aventura. Both moved a lot faster than we could, but we caught up to the Dutch team through a combination of toilet stops and them taping the knee of one of their riders. The result was that we were able to ride in the draft of the Dutch riders for about 10 km at a much higher pace, but eventually they dropped us.

We rode into Mingela at about 4pm and found both the Argentinians and the Dutch there. We would see a lot of both of these teams in the trek to come.

Leg 11: 45 km trek through the “maze”.

This one was epic. It’s hard to remember it all in the right order, as it feels like a week-long excursion.

We left Mingela when it was still light and crossed the highway into an area where we were warned that the tracks would not match the map. It looked like there were a whole lot of remnants of railway embankments in the area, and some large holes that looked man made in the fading daylight. Maybe this used to be a mine, or a site to shift bulk goods between trains, or something like that. We found that travelling on top of one of these old embankments was easiest, even though they curved around in long sweeping corners and were not well mapped. Some of them were certainly higher than 10m, but not shown on the contour lines. Traveling along these embankments brought us to the actual railway line fairly quickly. We had to cross it, and were not to stay within 50m of it. We had to bash through some pretty dense spiky bushes to get away from the railway line, but found fairly clear ground on the other side.

There was track to follow for a while, and but eventually it stopped going in our direction and we used a bearing instead, to get us to the next track at the foot of the escarpment. On the way, we saw some cane toads, which Michael tells us are a pretty scary thing to look at if you’re already seeing sleepmonsters.

We followed the track up the escarpment and along, looking for the high point at the 1km mark. At 750m, we saw a high point. Could this be it? Michael and Mica agreed, “it’s worth a try, but if it’s no good let’s come back and look further along”. Well, as soon as we’d left the track we’d forgotten about that and spent the next while exploring several gullies in the wrong spot. Eventually we decided to go back to the track, and try again, but we lost altogether too much time there. We also saw the Dutch and Argentinians who were having a similar lack of success.

We moved on, trying to follow the track, but we were tired and the track seemed less and less obvious. A short nap until dawn should help, and yes, the track suddenly looked a lot clearer, and we could see the terrain around us to confirm that we were indeed on a plateau with some gullies in the spots where we wanted them to be.

Onwards, just ahead of the Dutch and Argentinians still, who clearly stopped to sleep as well. With lots of singing by Michael, Mica and Caroline, we eventually made it to the next checkpoint on the peak, meeting the other two teams there again. They stopped for a snack and we seized the opportunity to get away from them, walking briskly towards the canyon. More singing, the “XPD round” was taking shape and the Beatles and the Lion King were also sung loud and proud.

It was hot, and we were running low on water, but eventually reached the first waterhole in the Reid River canyon and Michael and Mica took a dip in the water. No crocs in sight, although we were later told there was one in a pool on another arm of the canyon.

Boulder hopping to the checkpoint, then boulder hopping further up the canyon to find the track that would take us further. Caroline had a run-in with a tree branch resulting in a red scratch in the middle of her forehead. Michael slept on the side of the track as the team stopped for a toilet break, and a herd of cows almost trampled him. Caroline saw them coming and shouted for Michael to get off the road, and the cows stopped and turned around. Phew!

At the next checkpoint we got a pleasant surprise - a crate was left there by the race organisers with a bottle of coke and a can of pringles per team! Best snack in the race. We stopped and savoured these before moving on, hearing the Dutch and Argentinian teams coming up in the distance. One of the Argentinian team came running to us, asking whether they could follow us. Mica is fluent in Spanish. It seemed the Dutch were stopping for a while, but the Argentinians wanted to move on, but didn’t want to move by themselves because they were low on batteries. We said ok, and ended up sticking together until the end of this leg: The hike to the attack point for the next CP was straight forward. We chose to walk on track as this would be easier for Michael’s feet, even though it would be longer. At the attack point, we must have made a mistake and gone down the wrong spur, as we spent quite some while searching for it, fanning out with the other team and walking up and down the spur without trace of the CP. Eventually, we saw lights moving along an adjacent spur, and we realised the we were in the wrong spot. Caroline got us on to the correct spur, one of the Argentinians found the CP, and we all moved on, Mica in the lead, trying to find a way down.

This turned out to be a bit more exciting than we had expected. There was a little downclimbing needed between some boulders. Surely not the easiest way, but we had committed and didn’t want to turn around. With Michael and Mica’s climbing experience, we knew that we would be able to do it, even though Caroline was a bit unsure. Once Bear Hunt was down however, it turned out that team San Juan Aventura was not comfortable with the down climb at all, and called Mica for help. She ended up finding an easier way down for them, though also had a close call when one of the Argentinians dislodged a large rock above her.

Then some trudging through the flat country towards North-East, looking for the road that would lead us to the TA. Michael was really struggling with sore feet and progress was very slow, so Caroline and Minh-Tam helped out by carrying his pack. We found a small dirt road, which didn’t quite match the significant bitumen road marked on the map, but did appear to be in the right spot. We followed it North, hit a gate near a house and seemingly the track did not continue on the other side.

Based on what in retrospect seems like some pretty silly decision making, we decided that while this house must be the one marked out of bounds on the map, this must not be the right road, and we should go East some more. Yeah… so we went east, away from the TA, for another 45 minutes, until we decided we were too tired and possibly lost. We stopped to set up the tent and have a nap, and the Argentinians, still following, also zombies just like us, did the same.

In the morning, all looked better - except for Michaels feet, which had swollen some more. Michael and Minh-Tam triangulated our position using some hills that we could identify, and Caroline and Mica walked a few minutes further east to check out the direction of flow of the next creek. It is clear that we overshot the road, so we headed back, went through the gate that we saw at 3 am, there definitely was a road here, why didn’t we see it!

The Argentinians hurried ahead and reached TA a little before us. Michele Krome welcomed us at TA with much hoorah and here-you-finally-are. We pulled off a relatively quick transition to the last bike leg and were on our wheels before the Argentinians are ready, but they overtook us just a kilometer down the road, one of their riders is apparently a national XC champion.

Leg 12: 50 km bike ride to the finish.

Our last leg! We transitioned relatively quickly and rode off in the right direction (thankfully). The roads were easy going, and there were some fun undulations to keep things interesting. Caroline, who was navigating, got a bit confused at one point when the road turned in the wrong direction to cross a creek, and wanted to lead the team off in a slightly different direction down a smaller road. Michael, with his experience, suggested taking the bigger road anyway as it would probably be the best one to lead us to Townsville, despite Caroline being convinced that it wasn't one marked on the map, and his suggestion was a good one.

The empty roads outside of Townsville were perfect to dance the Macarena on the bike (bunny hop instead of turn, obviously), and we perfected our XPD round, getting it performance ready.

Michael took over navigating when we reached the inset map of bike paths in the city.

It took longer than expected to finally reach the end through the winding bike paths, but we were so happy to see the finish line, and we were all so glad to be able to put our feet down on the other side. Caroline popped the champagne, and had to be talked through how to spray her team mates with it, and then we each got our glass and had a seat on the Finishers' lounges. It felt so good to be finished! We all agreed that we had a great time and that the team dynamics were fantastic. It felt a bit bittersweet - it was a bit sad that the fantastic adventure was over and that it was back to reality.