Southlanders navigate way to victory

Celebrating their win at the finish line of the La Routa Adventure Race are (from left) Dean...
Celebrating their win at the finish line of the La Routa Adventure Race are (from left) Dean Stewart, of Wyndham, Sophie Shallard and Flynn Goodger, both of Gore, and Josiah Murphy, of Te Anau. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
A group of Southlanders are rapt to have won first place in the La Routa Adventure Race in the Philippines last month.

Sophie Shallard and Flynn Goodger, both of Gore, along with Dean Stewart, of Wyndham, and Josiah Murphy, of Te Anau, were part of the Fear Youth team that won the race.

Fear stands for Fiordland Endurance and Adventure Racing.

It is a group of young athletes supported by and associated with the "fearsociety".

Team navigator Dean Stewart said the team moved quickly and not much went wrong.

"The interesting aspect of this race was the navigation was quite old school."

They had to find their way by plotting latitude and longitude lines on a map.

"Just about every team had their points in the wrong place before they even started the race."

That was one of the more challenging parts of the race.

The race lasted three days and covered a distance of 350km.

"We took 90 hours, I think, and we slept four and a-half."

Fortunately, their bodies had all recovered well, he said.

"There’s a few blisters floating around though."

The team celebrated their victory with a party.

"We rushed away to a hotel for a shower and a sleep.

"Then there was a big party at the local government buildings later that night. That was cool."

Other countries that competed included Poland, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Shallard said she was happy when she finally stepped over the finish line.

"It was my first adventure race, so it was a good learning experience and good to have a good sleep afterwards."

Murphy said that they put in a good shift despite some tough points.

"There were a few tough points where the nav got pretty tricky and we did a fair bunch of extra [kilometres]."

For their victory the team were awarded free entry into next year’s ARWS World Championship, to be held in Ecuador.