When a GODZONE race report from Louie Burger lands in your inbox, you know it’s gonna be wild. With multiple high-profile events under his belt, this intrepid young man is no stranger to adventure racing. So the question is never whether his story will amaze, but how exactly the days will unfold and which objects he’ll encounter or hallucinate along the way.
With the return of GODZONE, Louie and his team pushed their luck deep in the rugged wilderness of Marlborough, collecting plenty of material for this impressive and highly entertaining write up. Enjoy!
How it started
At the beginning of this year, GODZONE announced its return. After a 2 year hiatus this was exciting news. The race had ended pretty abruptly in 2023. But it was back, new structure and a bit of a change in leadership. We have another world class race in NZ as well now, The Magnificent, but there is something special about GODZONE, the media coverage and hype everyone has for this event is just next level. There is a certain amount of lore surrounding the race in NZ, everyone knows what it is and is following.
When it was announced I was very keen to race. Floating the idea with my good mates Leo, Nika and Tide. Everyone was pretty onboard. Nathan offered to mentor us and AWS Legal came on as a naming sponsor through GODZONE.
Being a young team we went into the event not having much expedition experience. I had raced The Magnificent and Expedition Oregon, and Leo and I had raced the Kaikoura 48 earlier in the year but apart from that the team’s experience was mostly 12hr length races through school and plenty of personal outdoor missions. Although very different to an expedition event, the years racing with school had given us the fundamentals. We could race as a unit, be efficient and look after each other well. All key skills for these longer races.
There were still a lot of unknowns as to how we would hold up with sleep being a bit of a worry. We put in the training and with a relatively smooth build up we all managed to get to the start line fit and healthy.
Next level race
When GODZONE announced the race, the winning time was 5 days with the course open for 8. We had a feeling that with their comeback they would make it tough. We were expecting a big challenge, but the race that unfolded this year turned out to be next level…
We arrived in Blenheim a couple of days out with mountains of gear. Being a supported race the options of extra gear and “nice to have equipment” was huge. We spent the next days organising food, gear and talking over strategy. There was a lot to do.
Come Thursday (race start) we were ready to rock and roll after a good sleep we turned up towards the end of check in. We checked off gear, ticked off safety briefings and picked up kit. It was all very crazy and exciting, cameras, screens, banners. We even got interviewed for the sports news. 11am rolled around and we picked up our maps with a 4pm race start about an hour’s drive away. There wasn’t much time to plan our route and make final gear adjustments.
As soon as we got the maps one thing was clear: this was going to be a massive race. They had released the logistics planner a week out with distances, so we had had a pretty good guess at the course but when we got the maps it looked even more physical. There were no estimated stage timings at that point but we were prepped that if we were to full course it would be an 8 day excursion taking the maximum allowed time.
Stage 1 Multisport 25km + 400m
The race started with a small multisport, a sea kayak, 6km trek and then packraft in the Sounds. We started aiming to pace ourselves. As far as we were concerned our speed at the beginning of the race didn’t matter, we had to conserve our bodies to last the week, so we started slow. Sea kayaking is our weakest discipline but still we managed to come off it dead last behind all Pure and Pursuit teams. We later found out that there was one team behind us who broke their boat, but you get the gist.
We transitioned smoothly passing several teams. We also passed a few teams on the uphill of the cross sound walk only to be passed on the downhill. That didn’t worry us, we were trying to save our legs. Still a hell of a lot of racecourse left…
We aimed to be as efficient as possible in our transitions so as soon as we hit the beach packrafts were rolled and the pumps were on. All good to go… Shit. We had zipped our headlights up in the rafts. Down they go, not the smartest start to our transition game.
Onto the water the paddling was a bit of a drag. Packrafting in the sea against an outgoing tide isn’t the most fun thing to be doing. We spent most of that 10km paddle dreading the huge packraft trek in the sounds towards the end of the race.
Hitting the first TA in the dark we made short work of the transition onto the 80km bike. A couple of cheeseburgers down the hatch and we were off.
A lot of bike carrying
Biking started on the sealed road, which was fast and effortless. We clocked a few kms before looking for the singletrack, missing our mark a bit. We ended a few hundred metres up a creek with some other teams carrying bikes on our backs. We didn’t see whitewater biking on the logistics planner!
Back down and onto the singletrack. It was dark but we could make out the drop off which was pretty significant. The trail was rooty and slippery so maximum focus was required. We passed some teams who had stopped for someone fallen down the bank.
Pushing our bikes up the hill, we were soon caught up with other teams. People would make quick moves on us and have half their team in front and half their team behind. It was a bit of a shambles - we much prefer to be racing alone. The trail worsened and we did a lot of bike carrying over windfall and pushing downhill. Finally the going got nicer and we were able to ride out the hill onto the flats.
The next goal was the Avon TA for some Z’s. About 20km from the TA we stopped by some lovely looking long grass. A snooze here was extremely tempting but we pushed on keeping our brains awake with some games that included guessing the biggest movie franchise and naming animals starting with G.
We hit the TA at 5am - straight to the tent for 1.5hr of shuteye. Our awesome support crew Barry and Kyla sorted our gear and packs for the next trekking stage.
Stage 3 Trek 50km +3850m
Stage 3 was a 50km trek. Not super far but off track so we estimated around 20 hours. Moving nicely we were enjoying the cool morning. We even came across a poo planted right on the track, a bit of time was occupied guessing which team was so busting that their business had to be done right there…
The day was hot and we made sure to max out our water carrying capacity. Highlights included seeing Kaikoura Adventure under 20, our mates in the Pursuit, who kindly waited at the top of the hill for us. We walked with them for a bit. It was nice to see some familiar faces. In the valley, we managed a quick dip and some foot care before the big climb up to Mt Barometer.
Mount F*ck Off
On that climb we had a few realisations, the main one being - fu*k, this course is massive, who is even going to finish? We were 12hr into the trek and the end was still a long way away. It looked like we would be sleeping out there and our 20 hour estimate was going to be closer to 25/30.
Nearing the summit of Barometer, nicknamed Mt F*ck Off, we went up a super dodgy bit. Some more cursing happened going up here. It was quite exposed, if you slipped in some spots you would probably meet your end. There was no other way around, so we carefully sidled our way through the bluffs.
Dropping off Barometer we heard a chopper. We got very excited. Sure enough it flew in doors off, a couple of cameramen hanging out. It was mind blowing. This big machine costing $50 bucks a minute was hovering on the ridge waiting for us to walk into the sun. It filmed us doing three passes from different angles. I was so excited. Thinking of the helicopter kept my tired mind very entertained well into the night.
Hut toilet hallucinations
That night we dropped slightly off the spur, the mistake costing us around an hour. At one point Tide hallucinated the hut toilet which I also saw, a short moment later. We realised it was a cabbage tree.
Reaching the hut we pitched the tent and took a three-hour sleep. The volunteers staying at the hut gave us hot water and lollies.
Another big hill for breakfast and onto the next CP. The TA staff there confirmed that we were in 7th place which we had never expected. We also learned that most teams in front had had none or about an hour of sleep so having four in the bank felt good. We weren’t worrying about the competition at this point but it certainly was a good morale boost. Some more hills and we hit the final CP where the staff gave us burgers. An hour and a half of chill track walking and we had finished stage 3!
Stage 4 Mountain Bike 144km + 2750m
Stage 4 was a decent bike with a large hike, a push, a drag, a crash, a bike section off track over the Acheron Saddle.
We moved well through the forestry and up the valley which was good riding and mostly uneventful until we hit the best aid station, it had everything! Bike repair, drinks of all kinds and hot sausage rolls and mini pies. The big climb was next so we made sure to stock up.
The hike a bike was slow but we picked away at it, grateful for the dark so that we couldn’t see the full hill in front of us.
Hard yakka
The downhill for the remainder of the night was painful. Pushing, coasting, carrying and sketchily riding our bikes down the tussock and animal tracks that followed the valley. Riding required some serious locking in and I don’t know how we didn’t crash more. We pushed our bikes into the early hours of that morning all fighting our own personal battles with the terrain. Leo went through stages of some excessive whip cracking which wasn’t always appreciated but quite funny in hindsight. Tide took some spectacular tumbles and Nika exclaimed she wanted to fist fight her pedals. It was hard yakka.
I remember finding a bit of enjoyment imagining that instead of pushing my bike down this bloody hill I was taking an animal for a walk. We needed some sleep.
Coming across a hut early that morning we opted for some rest, just 1.5hr as we were certain we would be dark zoned on the river the next day giving us 8hrs of mandatory sleep (more on this later).
A bit of a surprise
Kaikoura Adventure u20 also happened to be sleeping in the hut. We tiptoed in but woke a very grumpy and confused looking Henry who was much more happy when he found out it was us and not his team getting ready while he slept.
After a mix of biking across slow paddocks and faster roads we hit the TA at 11am, happy to see our support crew. We quickly changed and headed up to the small canyoning stage. This was super fun and only took about 40 minutes, although it was quite chilly.
Back at the TA our support crew wanted to have a chat. They had been tracking the lead teams and they said we would confidently make the dark zone on the next paddle stage. This was great news but a bit of a surprise when we had been mentally preparing for a lovely 8 hours of sleep.
Stage 6 Packraft Trek 129km +3200
We hit the river at midday. The whitewater was epic! On the technical side for an adventure race, with plenty of fun features to keep us entertained. Running on only 1.5hr of sleep the previous night we were pretty buggered and went through stages of drifting off in the rafts.
We all got pretty cold, constantly getting smashed by waves and didn’t have the energy to warm up. It was much worse for Tide and Leo who were getting drenched the most by the whitewater and the dodgy waterproofing on our drysuits wasn’t helping either. We made takeout by dark and had a pretty slow transition. Our brains were getting quite fried and we knew we would have to get a solid sleep that night.
Blackberry bush bash
We started the trek, packs feeling pretty heavy. After 50 metres of riverbed we hit a solid wall of blackberry and thorns. It was only 100 metres to the road and we didn’t have any other choice. It was shitty but was bashed through and we were ready to get some kms under our belt.
As it got dark we trekked along the road looking for the small 4WD track that would take us to the spur which climbed 1100 metres to the ridge. When we got there the track was shitty and didn’t sidle onto the spur. We continued down the road looking for another way onto the spur.
Shining around with our Fenix spotlight it quickly became apparent that it was shitty travel, juvenile pine trees with blackberry underneath. There was absolutely no chance of getting through. It was gutting but we knew we had to go back a couple of kms down the road and up another spur which we had heard race leaders Fear Youth had taken. It looked like it could be average, but we were out of options. At least there was a road going up it for a few hundred metres. As soon as there was a moderately flat spot we pulled up stumps for the night. Leo and I took the tent and the girls found a spot for the double bivy under a gorse bush. We set alarms for a four hour sleep. Leo’s watch in his buff by his ear so he wouldn’t sleep through it.
No alarm
We don’t fully know what happened that night but this is how I recall it. I wake up to Leo either awake or sleep talking in a very frantic paranoid voice saying stuff along the lines of “I’m sick of this shit, I don’t want to sleep here anymore”. I looked at my watch, it was 1:30. We still had a couple hours more sleep to go. I remember saying “what the fu*k are you talking about, go back to sleep”.
We woke up to the first light having overslept. Wondering why we hadn’t woken up to the alarm, we quickly realised Leo didn’t have his watch. We later found it on the ground outside, obviously tossed out at some point during the night, an event none of us could recall. I went to wake the girls, they had also slept through their alarm, turned off subconsciously during their sleep. Oh well, seems like we needed the extra hour.
Up the hill. It wasn’t great bush. We aren’t too bad at bush bashing but it definitely felt like a chore - hindered by our massive packs. I found myself at the back. Nathan had lent me his new 125 litre custom Southern Light hunting pack, which I was very excited about using. It was filled with bulk, PFDs etc. It meant that no one had stuff hanging off their packs but it did look a bit ridiculous and proved to be quite a pain when moving through the bush. I had to resort to ducking, weaving and unleashing some mongrel on the bush.
Impeccable timing
We moved well getting an epic view of the braided Wairau River we had paddled the previous day. Upon reaching the ridge we made our way onto the track. It felt so good, we could move fast again.
During the race we made some pretty terrible jokes. Our wit seemed to deteriorate as our bodies did. Walking along the track Tide exclaimed “Look there’s a person.” “Really?” I couldn’t see anybody. She started laughing. We had had some bad jokes but this was a new low. Then Leo joined in, “no Louie there actually is someone”, laughing. “Guys this is a shit joke.” They kept laughing. “Jokes on you if someone walks round the corner.” I said. A second later, I shit you not, a guy walks round the corner. Everyone cracks up. I couldn’t see him the whole time cause the track was a sweeping corner and I was walking by the bank. Whoever that guy was, his timing was impeccable.
Making it up the climb was a small milestone but we still had a long way to go over the Richmond Ranges, another dark zoned packraft and then a trek which all had to be completed by 1am Wednesday if we were to make the cutoff. When we started the stage we had 61 hours to make it. The estimated slow time posted by the race was 52 hours. We were chasing the front pack so with 26 hours to go we were on the edge but still optimistic.
Good learning
From the ridge we had to descend 500m to Lake Chalice Hut for a CP and to wash our shoes and packrafts for didymo. The staff were lovely, giving us chocolates and even cutting up their sandwich for us.
Leaving the hut we headed back up the hill aiming to climb over Mt Richmond and down to Middy Hut where the Pelorus put in was. As we left the staff mentioned “media is that way”, not directly saying but heavily indicating we should be going. They were just trying to help. The four teams in front of us had taken this route so in hindsight we could see why we were expected to go this way. The media was set up along the lake edge and we were distracted.
Having a quick conversation, we figured there must be some reason we should go that way. This was our fault, we should have stopped, checked and backed our route choice. It was good learning but definitely frustrating. When we stopped to look at our maps we didn’t think it would be worth going back. We moved well for the rest of that day along the track. On dusk we popped over the ridgeline and saw the Tasman Bay, the Abel Tasman, Kina, Motueka, Nelson and the Wharepapa skyline. Home was beautiful.
Also it was bloody cold and windy so we weren’t sticking around to take it in.
We joked how we could just get picked up at the road end and sleep in our own beds tonight. That sounded pretty good. But we still had a lot of hours between us and the put in on the Pelorus so we trucked on.
Lost
We went off track following the Bryant Range and spur down to Robuck Hut. As it got dark the flagging taped track ended and the bush bashing started. It began to rain and the bush was wet. We were cursing our support crew who had swapped out all of our heavy raincoats for the lightweight ones because “it saved about a kilo and the forecast was good”. I felt like my fleece had taken on a kilo of water. 🤣 It was tough moving.
Our communication worsened as we picked our way through the tight bush. The navigators shared the map around which must have been where the disconnect happened. We were all dreaming of the sleep at Roebuck Hut. It was just a 400m descent off the spur then a 6km along the track to the hut. We dropped off the spur towards the hut, I calibrated my altimeter and counted down the metres. The bush was crown fern with loose rock underneath and treefall so we were just focusing on staying on our feet as we picked our way down.
The track was at 600m. I looked at my watch, 600 came and went - the weather system must have stuffed the barometer. Then 400, the track must be here. We were tired, I hallucinated weirdly seeing many bike tyres in the crown fern. Then it got steep moving down into the creek, it was getting very dodgy. The map wasn't matching. Something was very, very wrong. We were lost.
Cheese sandwich and grapes
Having figured we'd somehow dropped off in the wrong direction. We knew we weren't finding our bearings in the dark and needed sleep. Back up the hill looking for a tent site it was very grim pickings. We settled on a pile of rocks and dirt pushed up against a log.
We woke at daybreak. This was one of my lowest points. We were lost, cold and probably going to miss the full course cutoff. The navigators did very well to figure out where we were. Climbing up the hill again and at around 9am finally hit the track we were supposed to hit at 1 or 2am. Optimistically there was still a chance we could complete the packraft and next trek before the 1am cutoff so we pushed the pace along the track to the packraft put in at Middy Hut.
Upon reaching Middy Hut we found out that Team RAB - who were leading the race took 12 hours to do the paddle and final trek. We had 13 and they had done it all in the daytime. We lost a lot of haste hearing that news. The staff at that TA gave us hot water for our Real Meals and a legend runner took our rubbish and gave us a cheese sandwich and grapes.
Cracks and blisters
Packrafting - the river had just enough water in it. It was technical and pretty fun but we just seem to have this issue when we get onto the packraft, it makes us sleepy. I caught myself having micro naps being awoken by bumping into a rock or one of my teammates shouting at me. I also “relaxed” my posture by lying on the back of the raft at points which wasn’t always appreciated. We all fought to keep our eyelids open for the remainder of that paddle. Once we hit land we knew it would be ok.
Packing our bags on the river bank, Tide took her shoes off, her feet looked pretty cooked. Blisters and real deep cracks, it was a grim sight. I took my shoes off and my feet looked similar, massive cracks and a blister that looked like a sixth toe on my right foot. Tide’s feet were quite sore so we bandaged them up and she swapped shoes with Nika so they would fit.
A brand-new silver three wheeled motorbike
Another small mistake but we found the right creek and moved up it clipping the third control of this monster stage. Now we just have to climb a hill and descend into the TA to finish this blasted stage. It can’t be that hard right?
Walking up the hill I felt good but could constantly hallucinate things. My brain was just filling in the blanks in the dark if I wasn’t focusing. The ground was covered in beach leaves which are round, brown and about the size of a coin. My tired mind was making the whole ground into faces, like how they would look on a collage artwork. A few leaves would make up one face. In the leaves I saw lots of bald men, quite a few Barack Obamas, John Lennons and other random people. A weird experience but it definitely kept me entertained. Leo even saw a brand-new silver three wheeled motorbike!
Just wanting to get out
We now had to just descend to the TA. It was 2am, we had well missed the cutoff so decided we weren’t going to make the TA for sleep. Our third and final night on that ginormous stage was yet again a rubbish sleeping situation, but we made do. That morning we zigzagged down the hill struggling to confirm if we were on the correct spur.
It didn’t feel like racing anymore, we just wanted to get out. We hadn’t seen another team in more or less three days and we were 68 hours into a stage that was supposed to take the slowest teams 52. Our food was low and morale wasn’t that flash either. Finally we hit the creek less than 1km from the TA. It was more or less a gorge, we couldn’t walk down it. The idea of floating down on one packraft was suggested which was very unrealistic but a lovely thought.
Up the other side of the creek we climbed then finally after 72 hours we hit the TA. Barry and Kyla, our support crew were there as well as Pip, Cat and Jessie. They were very happy to see us and it was such a morale boost. Vibes were high again. They had KFC and yummy food and I managed three bowls of Nutri-Grain. Delicious.
Silver lining
Punching in race staff informed us of the short course. We knew we would be short coursed here but weren’t sure what it was. But there was no short course in play, the weather in the sounds was too bad to packraft. All the teams were to bike 25km to a new TA. (6b) The race would restart when the weather improved but instead of finishing the remainder of the course or short course it would be a 30km kayak race to the end with no time credits given for the time you arrived at the stopping point.
It was gutting. Finishing that massive stage was more or less the end of the race. It was very anticlimactic, no finish line to chip away at, just a cruisy bike ride, a big rest and then a short 30km kayak to the finish. It had a silver lining for us though - we were very buggered and in the moment, it was quite the relief. Kyla put on some music and we left the TA dancing.
We biked into Canvastown where we were stopped for a news interview. Four locals drinking outside the Canvastown pub had been following the race and were very excited to see us. They had cake and we couldn't resist a quick stop.
A good serving of cake on board we reached the new TA (6b) at around 2pm. It was so windy and we could see why we weren’t paddling. We rested, had more KFC, pizza and tended to blisters. At one point we watched lots of large branches blow out of the top of a huge poplar and across the paddock. We were happy to be in our sheltered spot. Shut up in our support bike trailer we managed 14hr of sleep.
A week to remember
We woke for the 8am restart. At this point with Fear Youth (second place at the time) had pulled out so we were 4th by a few hours, with Nelson Vets 5-6 hours in front of us.
But with the restart positions for the ranked teams, it didn’t matter. Six teams had made it through stage 6 before 8am so in this last kayak leg we could place anywhere from 3rd to 6th. It was weird, well over 100 hours of racing and large gaps built up just to come down to this. We knew we weren’t strong sea kayak paddlers so were expecting our place to slip to 6th. We went out hard, maybe something could happen?
Very quickly, we got passed by a couple of the teams who were hours behind just a day earlier, they had caught us in minutes. It was clear we weren’t catching up. It was especially disheartening when we got caught up to and passed by an unranked team with a sea kayak towing a packraft. We didn’t think we were this bad at paddling. 😂
For the last stretch we stayed positive, recalling our favourite parts of the race and singing songs. Even in that moment we looked back on the race fondly. We had had some awesome times out there and even then the memories of the suffering were slipping away. What a journey, we had seen some insane places and attempted to tackle a course that was huge, too big really. It was certainly a week to remember.
We portaged our boats a few kms to Queen Charlotte Sound. A 10 km paddle to the end and we had finished! Crossing the line we were handed a trophy! The other young team, Fear Youth, had to pull out so we were next in line. You have to have a combined age of 110 or under to qualify for this trophy and ours was 73 so it’s fair to say we have a few more years in the category.
We caught up with mates at the finish line, mowed over some delicious pies and beer and went for a shower at a friend’s place. We all jumped on the scales. Leo had lost a couple of kgs, Nika had lost four, Tide had also lost a couple. I jumped on and was shocked to see I had gained 2.5kgs, I guess I didn’t know how heavy I had gotten before the race!
An exciting return
Overall it was an amazing experience and we feel so privileged and grateful that we have the opportunity to participate in these events at such a young age. With regards to the course it was just too big to complete within the 8 day cutoff. Not a single team finished with hugely experienced Team RAB not getting the chance to do the Mt Stokes trek. We highly doubt the whole course was scouted on foot, as many of the time estimates were simply too fast. The big packraft trek stage over the Richmond Range, the slow time for that was 52hr, RAB took that. The weather was a bit of a hindrance but if it hadn’t happened only RAB and possibly Fear Youth would have finished.
So as happened second thru sixth places only completed six stages of a nine stage race. With the other fourteen teams not even doing that. While it was disappointing to not finish the course - which we felt we could have achieved on a typical year, but we aren’t dwelling on it too much. That’s the nature of this sport, race directors aren’t always going to get it right. In a way it’s all part of the adventure.
The return of GODZONE is exciting. The amount of media attention, backing and hype they generate around the event is truly, no pun intended, “like no other”. Which is so key to helping our sport grow. With another fantastic race The Magnificent also happening in New Zealand it is an exciting time for racing here. GODZONE will be having a hard look at the race design this year and I’m sure will be back with an great race next chapter.
A word of appreciation
The support our team received was truly next level. Almost everyone I talked to was following the tracking and media at some point. It’s just mind boggling how many people were watching our dot while we were out there in some huge country feeling like it was just us and the mountains.
Tide, Nika and Leo, it was so awesome to race with you and I couldn’t have asked for a more epic team to take on this challenge with.
Finally a huge thanks to our sponsors. This sport can be costly and we couldn't have done it without you. RAB, we are so glad you backed us for this race. There is a reason so many people choose RAB gear for AR. Mountain Adventure with La Sportiva, Fenix and Fixx Nutrition. Thanks for supporting us with your amazing range of products. And to Ron who sadly passed in the lead up to the race, he had a strong belief in our team and got behind us from day one. His advice, positivity and enthusiasm will be greatly missed. Talley’s, a fantastic local Motueka business who has been supporting us for years, Real Meals, another local company making top quality freeze dry. AWS Legal, Packraft NZ and Fruit Hits. Also, I would also personally like to thank Mondraker NZ, Kudosync AI and MyRide Motueka.
This has been a very long write up but it was a very long race so thanks for sticking with me!
Until the next one…
Louie