‘Yeah the Chatter’ taking out the win for the second year in a row
This year Mountain Designs Hells Bells delivered on its promise of an epic course creating legendary stories in a paradise like location.
Ninety-eight teams and 256 people arrived at race HQ, in the park at the appropriately named ‘Happy Valley’ – a beautiful beachside park on the Pacific Ocean and across from Bribie Island. Lining up to collect their race packs they were preparing to race either the full ‘Hells Bells’ course, or the shorter ‘Fairy Bells’ course.
Both have a 24 hour time limit, and include runs/treks, paddling and mountain biking to checkpoints in back country and wilderness areas. Finding these requires good map and compass navigation and there are always a few surprises and twists in the course.
Broken Compass leading the charge
Teams set off in three waves between 11am and 11:15am shortly after the course maps had been handed out.
Teams split between a kayak leg around ‘Pummicestone Passage’ and a beachside trek that took teams over the sand bridge to Bribe Island, along the boardwalks and coastal paths and café strip in Caloundra before collecting their bikes and heading to the hills.
The 30 km ride into the Sunshine Coast hinterland initially took teams through the local mountain bike park, then a maze of suburban streets before crossing under the pacific highway through a tunnel the local mountain bikers call ‘The Portal’.
A series of bonus checkpoints and some challenging minor trails gave teams lots of navigation decisions to make before crossing again under a busy road using a notorious drainage channel that has featured in several adventure races in the past.
Pumicestone Passage looking magnificent
The defending champions, ‘Yeah the Chatter’ took the lead early but always had a strong chase pack including first timers ‘Giddyup’ from Melbourne and ‘Mt Pleasant Rd Brewers’ in the male Category and ‘Mountain Designs Wild Women’ and ‘Broken Compass’ in the female and mixed categories.
As the sun set and teams arrived at ‘Ferny Forest’ for the second trek leg the lead Hells Bells teams caught up to the Fairy Bells teams.
They had ridden there directly, and one of the attractions of the race is that racers on both courses meet up throughout the race. The Fairy Bells racers shared many stages with the Hells Bells racers, and any teams who were falling behind could opt out of some stages. The end result was that all but 4 teams finished the course in 24 hours, having completed as much as they could.
The car park at Ferny Forest became race central for a while, and as night fell teams marked up their maps with extra checkpoints and set off on a foot orienteering course to pick up the checkpoints in any order. The Hells Bells teams had a 10-12km orienteering stage here and Fairy Bells 3-4kms so the surrounding forest was full of bobbing headlights going in every direction.
‘The Portal’
Leaving Ferny Forest, Hells Bells teams set off on a 40km Mountain Bike ride over one of the classic off-road cycling loops on the Sunshine Coast – up the notorious Brandenburg Road taking teams almost to Maleny before dropping steeply through Dularcha National Park and back towards the coast.
Hells Bells and Fairy Bells teams again met at transition area 3 with a big fire, a welcoming volunteer crew and a box of gear to replenish their supplies. The next leg was a largely off trail navigational challenge to collect 5 checkpoints with very few trails marked on the map.
Ferny Forest trails
One paddle leg, three distinct bodies of water
One of the challenging aspects of designing an adventure racing course is finding unique ways to travel into urban environments while maintaining a sense of adventure. The second paddling leg certainly delivered on that with teams starting out in the rarely paddled upper reaches of the Mooloolah river. There were then checkpoints in Lake Kawana and finally Currimundi Creek which ment teams needed to choose where they would exit the Mooloola River and enter the lake. This made for a challenging experience with some teams choosing to paddle further, working with the tide and others carrying their kayaks to take short cuts.
The final stretch of the kayak leg took teams to the beach and the incredibly beautiful beachside suburb of Currimundi where cafe goers and morning walkers looked on in amazement as adventure racing teams emerged from the creek and loaded their kayaks.
With only 7kms to go teams used the coastal paths and urban streets to make their way back to the finish line past the morning joggers and cafes.
The first team to finish Fairy Bells was ‘Tiger Adventure Racing Maniacs’ with Monika Lee, Andrew Slattery in a time of 11:57:28.
The first Hells Bells team were the defending champions ‘Yeah the Chatter’ in a time of 15:23:48.
The Mountain Designs Wild Women
The final results for the race were as follows.
HELLS BELLS – FULL COURSE
Mixed
Broken Compass
Sunny Side Up
Red Pandas
Female
Mountain Designs Wild Women
Never Vanilla
Team Caffine
Male
Yeah the Chatter
Giddyup
Mt Pleasant Rd Brewers Aussies!
FAIRY BELLS – HALF COURSE
Mixed
Tiger Adventure Racing Maniacs
True Bluey
Just Having Fun
Female
Walkie Talkies
SAW 1
Drs Doolittle
Male
23 South
What Would Goggins Do?
Shake and Bake
You can find the full results and review the tracking at www.hellsbells.com.au/live-tracking
The next adventure race from Wild & Co is the newly launched ‘Buckleys 24’ in Victoria followed by ‘Top Dog 24’ in Canberra with details at www.buckleys24.com.au and www.topdog24.com.au
Hells Bells is part of the Adventure Racing World Series Oceania calendar.
