Leaving TA2

We're just about to leave TA2 at the top of the mountain.

Nga Rakau arrived at about 9am, pretty tired, but things going according to plan so far. They slept at the TA for about 1.5 hours, and headed off on the downhill MTB. They're still on track to make the 'white-water' river by 3:30pm, after that teams will have to complete that leg on foot during the dark zone. (Apparently the flow is low and there's not much white water.)

At 12:30pm we're still waiting for Orion to arrive.
At last report from Geoff Hunt, both Nike & Orion had had difficulties after CP17A. There were two indistinct tracks leading out of the valley, they each took a different one. Nike bailed after a while, and headed for the road. At that point Chris thought they were on an out-of-bounds section of road, so they crossed the road under a culvert, and scaled a difficult bluff to avoid the road. That section wasn't in fact out of bounds, and they could have walked straight across it.

Orion by that time had apparently 'disappeared into the bush'.

They have both made it to subsequent checkpoints, but Geoff said that valley was full of long grass and rocks and was particularly difficult going. At this stage both of them have collected all the regular checkpoints and bonus checkpoints.

He likes the look of the Czechs who have been through this TA (2) and have started on stage 3. They have collected all of the regular checkpoints and none of the bonus checkpoints.
Team Outdoor Action have a similar strategy, but he said they 'didn't look so good'. And apparently the Poles are another team to look out for.

Hopefully Orion will turn up here soon. We were required to wait here for 1.5 hours after Nga Rakau had left, but we're just about to leave. I don't know how many checkpoints they've actually collected at this stage.