Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
forest to rainforest to the eventual fi nish alongside the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns (pronounced "cans"). Eco-Australia asked teams to hike, canoe, rappel, ascend fixed ropes, mountain bike, whitewater raft, ride horseback, and sea kayak. "Competitors, " Burnett enthused beforehand, "have no idea what they're get g themselves into." And he was right. The concept of Australia as a at land is given lie in Queensland. The country has no peaks, but more than makes up for that with gged terrain and Jurassic Park jungles. Pythons could be seen alongside the road, resting after a big meal. Kangaroos were everywhere (favorite Austra lian joke: "What's the last thing that goes through a kangaroo's d after my truck hits it? His ass. "). Team Eco-I nternet, efending champion and pre-race favorite, reported two codile sightings. But the real problems competitors faced in this event-an Eco that Burnett should be rightfully proud of for its glitch-free execution and competitive challenge were more insidious. Spear grass, for instance. Knee-high and barbed, it con ceals below its prickly surface glass-slick lava rocks on which com slipped and banged shins. A type of stinging tree has thorns so lethal getting too many under the skin is fatal. All this, beneath a veneer of aching beauty: Eucalyptus forests hoi e low fog and morning light and leave the viewer searching for a sin place on earth as mystical and ca lm; narrow granite canyons send waterfa plunging a thousand feet into black pools; the emerald and blue waters Cairns; the eerie green calm of walking through impenetrable rainforest. Racing th rough it all seems enchanting and heretical at once. And yet, after the race began, it seemed a mad dash was the only way to experience the diversity. The world's top adventure racing teams lined up outside the Undara lava tubes for the 5PM start on August 11. Foremo the three New Zealanders (John Howard, Keith Murray, Andrea Murray) nd lone Irishman (Robert Nagle) that made up Team Eco-Internet. But as the darkness of the lava tubes (think: caves) was replaced he dark of Outback night, and as racers slipped and stumbled through spe rass, the world slowly forgot about Eco-Internet. They were middle of t pack, old news. A mixture of teams from the US, Austra lia and New Zealan 'r",,,,,'Qr! the top spot above the bright red leader board festooned with po rate sponsors and brightened in darkest night with industrial lighting th Discovery Channel had inexplicably mounted in the midst of all the wilder ness. Eco-Internet was 13th or 18th or one of those teenths, no one knew quite where. But no one cared-especially not the 16 camera crews Discovery affixed to the course with their prying lenses, never meeting a heartbreaking downfall they didn't like-because Eco-Internet seemed too far out of the running. But Eco-Internet is redefining adventure racing. They have taken the sport from a slow plod to a relentless dash. Stealth and consistency a their hallmarks. They rarely take breaks, even to sleep. In the close to six da it took them to traverse from Undara to Cairns, they napped just 13 hou The rest of the field was mildly scared, then wary, then resigned to th eir bt·Qo ....... . �:�;;����I�����������