An old hand at the trail, Lodovico de Briganti is looking back on a Smith Family Challenge fundraiser in which he and his team raised topped targets by more than a quarter.
On his fifth Challenge, de Briganti - who is managing director of EidosMedia's Australian subsidiary - raised more than $11,000 of his team's (current) $50,775 total for the children's education charity.
"It was an incredible weekend of hiking, biking, swimming, canoeing, laughing and crying," he says.
This year's route started in Kangaroo Valley, 30 km west of Kiama on the NSW South Coast on the Thursday night, and participants were soon into a 100 metre swim across the river - "all geared up with shoes, rucksack and floating device" - in the middle of an 8km hike. A 24 km bike ride, more hiking and two more river crossings put the wet contestants at the foot of a steep uphill walk:
"I can't really explain what we went through then, but after that we still had to go for a 15km bike ride to reach the transition point and start carrying our canoes for around 700m down a very small track over rocks, logs and nearly bush bashing to the river for the final 3km stretch of paddle," he says. "It was gruelling, and because we didn't make it in the eight-hour limit, we didn't earn any points!"
The second day brought a change of strategy, as members focussed more on navigation, not missing checkpoints, and winning time to earn back some points. "We started at Fitzroy Falls and worked our way along the ridge for about 10km to reach the Meryla Pass and head down on our mountain bikes for a fantastic but very steep downhill ride," de Briganti says. "Once we reached to bottom, we cycled to and through the creek crossing and then another steep uphill pushing the bikes for 4.7 km to the transition point." More hiking and biking was followed by 3 km paddling canoes to the arrival point where "never a beer tasted so good".
Over two days, the Blood & Bone 1 team did about 110 km - of which 38 were hiking, 68 biking and five paddling - to end twelfth on the field.
But de Briganti says, "the Challenge is still going and we have already climbed to seventh spot thanks to contributions. Thanks again for helping me raise funds towards a wonderful cause."
You can add to individual and team totals by going to www.thesmithfamilychallenge.com.au/lodovicodebriganti