Milford Sound a Magic Start

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Milford Sound a Magic Start for Orion Health Godzone Adventure Race

The inaugural Orion Health GODZone Adventure race got off to a magical start this morning in Milford Sound. 31 teams of four lined up out in the Sound under the Bridal Veil Falls, where the race was started at 6.30am by race patron and nine time Coast to Coast winner Steve Gurney.

”It was a mass of headlamps and glow sticks lighting up the shoreline and quite magical," says co race director Adam Fairmaid.

We wanted the teams to experience this intense landscape at the start of the race probably when it will be more memorable for them and they were very excited to get out there."

Teams had an early start at 3.45am when they were transported out into the Sound by Real Journeys vessel, the Milford Haven and then Mariner Tender boats to the Bridal Veil Falls.

Leading New Zealand teams quickly made short work of the 8km paddle with Team Subway and Team Seagate neck and neck into the first transition area with just a minute between them. They were closely followed by Christchurch Team One Square Meal and Australian team Black heart.com. A lightning fast transition saw these teams onto their bikes and heading up the Milford Rd towards the Homer Tunnel.

Back in the mid field, teams experienced the highlight of a pod of Bottle nose dolphins that splashed and flipped around their boats.
Lisa Antill from Australian Team Hard Yuccas was surprised by how close they got to the wild life, “they were fully breaching out of the water around us, and it was quite incredible to witness."

Not much time separated the lead teams as they biked through the Homer Tunnel and down into the Upper Hollyford valley towards the Eglinton River. Here it was a smooth transition into inflatable kayaks for Team Seagate, Subway and One Square Meal.

Mid field Team Macpac Girls, Tiki Tour, R&R Sport and Mountain Designs all made good time along with Team City Bike Depot and Orion Health.

Co race director Warren Bates says the teams are blazing through the first day of the six day event and are currently ahead of projected race times by 20 - 30 minutes. Tonight the teams will head into their first night with a 54km trek over the Dunton Mountain Range just outside of Te Anau.

" We expect the first teams to arrive at the Mavora Lake transition area in the early hours of tomorrow morning ( Tuesday 10th) but I have to say there is some tricky navigation on this trek particular for one checkpoint so they could spend some time bush bashing to try and find it. It’s going to be exciting to see if the lead teams remain in their current positions but I'm not expecting them to sleep much if at all on the first night so they could move quite quickly.

Teams are travelling with a satellite navigational tracking device with live coverage on line at www.godzoneadventure.com

First teams are expected across the finish line on Thursday in Queenstown but racers have until 2pm on Saturday to complete the course.
ENDS

Teams quickly found their pace as the light came up and with a tail wind behind them Team Subway were first off the water in a blistering paddle time of 55minutes. However Team Seagate were right on their tail and actually checked in ahead of them at 7.30am with Subway checking in at 7.31am. Both teams were immedialty on their bikes and left the TA within 2 minutes. Third off the water was Team 27 One Square Meal from Christchurch in a time of 58mins and in fourth Team Mountain Designs from Australia.

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About GODZone Adventure
GODZone Adventure race is the first unsupported (no support crews) expedition style, adventure race to be held in New Zealand since the world’s inaugural event, the Raid Gauloises, 22 years ago. The major new event has been invited to join the Adventure Racing World Championships (ARWC), which is the annual culmination of an international circuit of premiere adventure races in 10 countries forming the Adventure Racing World Series (ARWS). http://www.godzoneadventure.com
About Orion Health Ltd. Orion Health™ is the leading Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution provider with expertise in clinical workflow and integration technology for the healthcare sector. Orion Health’s easy-to-use solutions and applications improve patient care and clinical decision making by enabling the exchange of healthcare information among disparate systems and providing integrated health data in a single, unified view. By extending existing healthcare information systems, the Orion Health™ Rhapsody™ Integration Engine and workflow solutions provide healthcare workers with easy access to patient data and trends, and reduce errors and omissions by streamlining information transfer. More information can be found at http://www.orionhealth.com

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