Leg 8 Tauhara Station to Taupo Domain

Distance 18.7km
Height Gained 10m, Height Lost -160m

Our support crew literally threw us out of Checkpoint 7. We knew we had to keep going but we just wanted to stay. As a result of her sleep, Alanna had recovered and rejoined us for this final leg. This leg while all downhill was both slow and difficult for us as a team.

The trail led out of the Landcorp Tauhara Station, alongside a steep gully next to Taupo Airport down into Wharewaka on the Lake Taupo waterfront. From there it was a simple case of following the footpath around the lake back to Taupo Domain.

Two events conspired on this leg to slow us down. Firstly it started to rain, and it rained, and it rained. Finally at Wharewaka the heavens really opened up and it and at that point it simply bucketed down. While we had all had wet weather gear it was not designed for that level of rainfall and we ended up being soaked through. Secondly, James legs began to let him down. He really struggled in the first part of the leg down to Wharewaka. After the event we find out that he had fractured a tendon. However he mustered some unknown inner strength and managed to do a speed run along the Lake Taupo waterfront. The look on the other teams faces as we passed them at full pace was priceless. What a heroic effort on James part.

Carli, one of our support crew met us at Two Mile Bay and walked the rest of way in the pouring rain with us to the finish line. What a inspiration she was to us for those last 5km, with some great of words of encouragement to edge us onwards towards that finish line. Thanks Carli. But 1km from the finish James finally ran out of steam and really began to hobble.

But on reaching Taupo Domain, shock, horror the trail markers did not lead into the Domain. How could they do this to us? Was this some kind of cruel joke? Instead the trail markers lead around the back of the Domain past the Marina and then up stairs into the back of the Taupo Domain. Could we walk this extra distance?

At long last after 26 Hours and 55 minutes we crossed the finish line. All 4 of us had done it!!!!

Olivier from PDL Panthers was there to greet us - looking fresh - you would never guess that he had done 100km, finishing 1½ hours ahead of us. The rest of our support crew (Alan, Mark) were there to watch us complete the world's greatest team challenge. Oxfam was there to greet us and awarded us each medals - that was a really nice surprise