Hillary Challenge

On the 4th of May, 8 students (Lauren Davey, Aeden Lehr, Fynn Jackson, Stijn van Broekhoven, Sophia Goodin, Odin Hyink, Kate Davey and Anna Goodin) traveled up to Christchurch to compete in the annual Hillary Challenge. Teams from schools all over the south island come to compete in this event.

The Hillary Challenge is a 6 hour adventure race with 4 separate stages consisting of biking and running in order to find markers and gain points. Our race started at Woodend Beach where the first section was half an hour on foot, then we moved on to the second stage which was a 5 km ride further down to Pines Beach, and some more racing on foot. Next was the third stage which was a 23 km ride that took us along the Kaiapoi River and over the iconic Kaiapoi Bridge, where we ended up riding to Spencer Park. Along the way we needed to find certain words in order to complete a crossword at the end of this stage which would give us an extra 400 bonus points. The final stage was around 2 hours on foot through Bottle Lake Beach Park.

Despite the mental and physical challenges that came with it, it was a fun experience for everyone and many memories were created throughout the weekend. In the end we placed 12th overall and were the top school out of the schools that competed from Dunedin.