Competitor's diary, August 13

Team picks up speed, passes into first place
Robert Nagle
Kirrama

Andrea Murray of Team Eco-Internet, relaxes in front of gear boxes

Over the last 36 hours the race has really started to become a lot more enjoyable, and it's gone our way a lot more than it had in the first day. The first day was a really hard slog, a hard trek, nothing very appealing at all about it. Nice countryside, lots of wildlife, but we were really suffering moving through that terrain, as was everyone else.

But then things started to get more interesting. We had a canoe section that was a lot of fun. Paddling inflatable canoes down a very braided river, we were required to find our channels and work through some channels. Which was a lot of fun in the dark.

Going on from there, we went back into the bush. But this time we had some really tricky navigation to deal with, and bushwalking under those circumstances, with some tough navigation decisions to be worked out is something we do pretty well as a team.

Things started to go our way, and suddenly we started to pick off teams.

Up until now we've been very conservative in our strategy, just basically trying to race our race. Getting some rest, trying to make sure we don't get caught up in the excitement that other people are generating.

And as the teams that went out very fast began to fade, we went from 10th to eighth to fifth to third and then all of a sudden we found ourselves in the lead.

Coming down off the top of the bush we got to a magnificent Tyrolean traverse about 400 feet across a valley, over the Herbert River. The Tyrolean was set up to keep us away from estuary crocodiles that are resident down there.

After that really spectacular ride, we hiked up a canyon to a ropes course, which was really stunning. We began with a short Tyrolean and then we started chugging up the side of an incredible waterfall, a multi-stage waterfall.

We finished with a 250-foot overhanging cliff right next to a full-on waterfall. The sights down that valley were really spectacular. And even though our first goal was to get up as quickly as possible, we sometimes rested just to look out and draw it all in, suck it all in. Sights like this don't come all that often.

This is a special time in the race, and its been a lot of fun.

To get from there to Camp 1, we jumped on mountain bikes and we've been riding for the last two hours or so.

And we're now heading back out for what promises to be the second stage of a stunning mountain bike ride. Where we'll have racked up, I think, a metric century in mostly off-road riding.

Up to now we've been in the dry bush, and we're about to change terrain, and get into the tropical rainforest. That part's going to be really fun.

Obviously there are a lot of competitors who are hard on our heels. All the best teams in the race are clustered not very far behind us, and we expect over the next couple of days the race will really begin.

Tomorrow, once we finish this mountain bike ride, we'll be on whitewater rafts for a trip down the Tully River, a very technical paddle. And when you get as tired as we are right now, paddling a river like that is pretty hard. It requires a lot of concentration and a lot of work, moving back and forth across the river, to find your way through. It's not a relaxing, just-hang-on kind of ride. It'll be a lot of work.

Following that, we're on horses, for a six-hour trek on horseback.

And then the really fun stuff starts with another mountain bike ride, followed by an amazing-sounding trek over famous Bartles Frere Mountain.

And then the last leg of the race will be into Cairns. It'll take us a few days to get to that point.

Right now we're about to enter the rainforest and soak up the beauty there.

Robert Nagle is captain of Team Eco-Internet, and is filing regular dispatches from the course.