After a rocky start it was a real pleasure to deliver GeoQuest NZ – our first Adventure Race in New Zealand – we loved every moment of working on the event from the great people, the friendly environment to the incredibly beautiful scenery.
There’s no question that we fell in love with the Hawks Bay region and are sure there is a great potential for many 48hr courses on the NZ North Island. In 2021 and 2022 we developed (with a lot of local support) a very cool course that unfortunately we weren’t able to use due to significant cyclone damage. Thankfully the re-building process is well underway and there is now an opportunity to use many of the area that we’d originally hoped to access.
While we were very (very!) grateful for all the teams that raced in 2023, we need quite a few more if GeoQuest NZ is going to be a sustainable event. We believe there is a market for a premier 48hr event on the North Island of NZ, not just as a warm-up event for an expedition race, but as a real highlight event in the calendar for teams.
The 2023 was a bit of a taster for what GeoQuest could be – it was certainly a lot faster than a normal GeQuest – so teams should be ready for a true 48hr event with the winning time around 32-34hrs and the last team crossing the line during presentations.
It would be a privilege to work to build GeoQuest NZ into an event like this. But we can’t do it without support from the local adventure racing community.
As such, we’re launching entries for GeoQuest NZ in 2024. The event will be held on the October long weekend in the Hawks Bay region, we’ve got an awesome course planned. We need at least 20 teams of 4 or 80 people racing to make it worth while so are launching with a $100 fully refundable deposit. If we get 20 teams of 4 or 80 people registered by close of Super Early Bird Entries on the 15th of April (extended from 31 March) then we’ll hit the go button and make it happen. If we don’t get 20 teams of 4 or 80 people entered then we’ll refund the deposits and know that it just wasn’t met to be.
We know there’s been interest in the event based on email inquiries and looking at the website analytics so we’e quietly confident.
Entries are now open, if you’d like to secure the Super Early Bird Entry price and ensure the event proceeds then lock it in here:
ENTER NOW: wildandco.redpodium.com/geoquest-nz-2024
