Bernice Lepper

Bernice is a secondary teacher now manager of Central Otago REAP, Alexandra. She is a keen sports woman. This is a speech she gave to the University of the Third Age (U3A), November 2000

Mad, crazy, impossible plus a variety of expletives are the comments made by most people when they hear about our Southern Traverse adventure. I agree who in their right mind would push their body that hard and for so long. Mad I must be!

The Southern Traverse is now the premier adventure race. It attracts the best teams in the world who come to compete against the best New Zealand has to offer. It is a five day, non stop event, that sees all four members of the team cover 450km of the hardest country the South Island has to offer and non stop you set out to reach your goal the finish line in one piece. To do this you run, bike, kayak, abseil, raft and navigate night and day, stopping to get a few minutes sleep when you dare, and moving as quickly as you can to reach your next transition, where more food, warm clothes and friendly faces patiently wait for you, sometimes up to 24 hours before you come in.

How did I get to be doing something as crazy as this?

It was a journey really. I did not consciously set out to achieve what I have done in adventure racing. It really just snuck up on me!

I distinctly remember my first triathlon, The Ghost to Ghost at St Bathans. I was the cyclist in a women's team. It was dare for fun really. A group of us at Dunstan High School in Alexandra thought if the guys can do it so can we! A year later I did the whole event myself. Two years later I completed my first Coast to Coast in a team.

The next year the same team was placed in the family team category and I was encouraged to do the whole thing myself, some more success and I graduated to the harder one-day version and discovered that I actually performed quite well in the longer races.

It was then that I was asked to compete in my first Traverse. This was way out of my comfort zone and I was apprehensive, scared and full of doubts about my own ability.

Duncan Hamilton from Hokitika rang in August 1998 to see if I would be interested in joining the West Coast Team. They had done it the pervious year and with one stage to go and 4 hours ahead of the next competitors they got caught in a snowstorm on the top of the Remarkables and had to withdraw as one team mate had hypothermia. So they had quite a lot of unfinished business. They had 2 changes to their team. Kathi Lynch the NZ Olympic star in both Mt biking and kayaking was unable to do it as was one of the guys. The team consisted of George from Hawkes Bay who had at the time the record for the run in the one day Coast to Coast. Hamish Hamilton from Hokitika, who had the 2 day run record, Duncan his brother who had won the mixed team for a number of years at the Coast to Coast and Mike Tubbs from Alexandra. Mike is also well recognised as a top athlete. So with a line up like this I declined the offer as how could I keep up with these super athletes. Anyway in September they rang back and this time very hesitantly I accepted and wondered what on earth I had done. 5 days with 4 guys, 3 of them total strangers and everyone said teamwork was the key.

Then came the training weekend!! Four of us met at the Haast, minus George, in November for a training weekend. Boy was I nervous. The first time to meet Hamish and Duncan and I thought one look at me and they would wonder what they had done, 5.4 and not sporty looking at all. Well the weekend started well, they liked a few beers so that was a good start and they decided not to train all night so that was another bonus. And then when we got the 5-man kayak out on the river, this was great, I could be pretending to paddle and they wouldn't even know. Rather a long, slim creature, with 5 seats and an outrigger it was certainly a long vehicle when being carted on the road. We biked to the put in then paddled down the Haast River to the township. Things were looking okay, my biking was strong enough and the kayak was fun and after tea at the Haast tavern they all seemed liked people I could work with. Next morning it was up and off up the Okura River for a short run, well that's what they told me. 7.5 hours later I staggered back to the car, sore, well exhausted and wondered who these maniacs were that called a run of over 7 hours short and didn't appear to be tired at all!!!

That was me gone, no way was I going to be able to keep up with this team, the Southern Traverse could go jump!

It was then that Tony my husband, pointed out I wasn't competing against my own team mates, in fact they had to work to keep me going. We were only competing against the other 5 person teams as each 5 person team had to have a women. Well this was quite a psychological change to my whole out look and from then on I was able to look at the event in a different way.

The Southern Traverse is an annual event run by Geoff Hunt from Queenstown. To try and get it more international recognition he has constantly made it longer and more demanding physically and mentally. In 1998 it was held the first week of December in the area beginning at Manapouri and finishing a t Walter Peak. In 1999 it was held in the Nelson area. In 2000 it was held in Canterbury.

For the first time in 2000 The Southern Traverse had been able to get major sponsorship in a partnership with Discovery Channel. With this new partnership came money once again a first and more international teams. When we won it in 1998 it had cost us about $4000 to enter and we had won $5000, this year they were offering $100,000 for first. Other changes had happened too. All teams had to be of 4 with one of the opposite sex.

Another change, I had changed teams, leaving the West Coast Boys to join Team Cromwell. Bill Godsall from Team Cromwell has done every Traverse, this was his 10th but until now generally in a 3 person man's team. Our other 2 members were Dick Brunton a policeman from Christchurch and Jim Cotter from the University of Melbourne who has done over 8 races with Bill. My old team was called Team Merrell and had replaced me with Jenny Rose.

Team Cromwell arrived in Methven on the Saturday with our huge support team of 9. This included Tony my husband and son, Blake, who was getting a week off school.

On the Saturday we had to pass the tests, and do a gear check and then on Sunday at 2pm it was the briefing.

At this you are given the course maps, information for both competitors and support crew, told of any last minute changes which is always quite a few and then free to go to get organised to start at 8 the next morning. The andrenalin really starts to buzz now as you look around at all the other teams, all 57 and see names you have only read about before. That night is spent organising gear as the navigator's pour over the maps, the area for advice and Uncle Ed had arrived. Ed Cotter is a well recognised NZ mountaineer and his knowledge of the area we were going to cover was excellent.

After an attempt at a night's sleep we were all up at 5.30am to be at the top of Cheeseman ready to start at 8am. Arriving there it was discovered that we had left our map for the first section in the van at the bottom of the hill. The van was left there because it was low on petrol. We all hoped this wasn't going to reflect the organisation for the rest of the race. Fortunately our navigator Jim had studied the map so well the night before he was confident he could remember it all, so with a page ripped out of a road atlas we set off.

Straight up the ski field to the top. Down scree slopes and up a valley to the snow level again and then the abseil. There was no time for a rest during the morning as we were keen to keep up with those in front, in case we had navigational problems. How we got to be one of the first 3 teams to the abseil I'm not sure but we kept on going constantly and I guess all that hill work we had done in training paid off. The abseil is one of my great fears and to get it over with so early in the race was a real bonus as I didn't need to loose sleep over it, not that sleep really comes into the equation!!
107 hours later we finished at the end of Lake Tekapo 4th team across the line and 2nd New Zealand Team. We had run, biked, kayaked, rafted, abseiled and most importantly navigated our way over 10 passes above 2000 metres, experienced all types of weather and finally finished in a huge southerly storm on Lake Tekapo, frozen but elated. The elation lasted for weeks as did the blisters, cut legs and the toenails, which continued to come off. I was eventually left with only 2 originals!

Was it worth it? Yes definitely. Not often in today's world do you get a chance to challenge your mind and body like this. It is really amazing what you can do even if Blake, our son has suggested they should lock me up in a straight jacket so I can't attempt any more suicidal things for a while. Meanwhile this weekend it's off with the running gear and into the glad rags as I have the pleasure of marrying a young couple as their marriage celebrant!

Bernice Lepper