The third edition of the Legend Expedition adventure race delivered a wild and spectacular course in Southern Tasmania, with teams relishing a 500km course full of varied terrain and navigational challenge.

The winning team was Broken Compass AR (Aus), who crossed the finish line in Huonville after 83 hours and 50 minutes, and the final team over the line were the veteran racers of Team Goldfish after more than 135 hours of trekking, paddling and mountain biking. (This particular team uniquely used tandem mountain bikes!)

The Legend is Australia’s Qualifier race in the Adventure Racing World Series, and race organisers Wild&Co. have an ambitious plan to take the race to the most iconic and challenging outdoor locations in every state. Following races in the Australian Alps and through the coastal National Parks of The Great Ocean Road, it was the turn of Tasmania to show off its natural wonders to a worldwide audience of adventure racing fans.

The town of Huonville was a perfect race HQ from which to to access the many nearby National Parks, mountain, lakes, rivers and forests. Racers from Australia, USA, Scotland, South Africa, Hawaii and Ireland gathered for a week of Tasmanian adventure which would push them to their limits and allow them to step aside from the pressures and routine of their day-to-day lives.

Race Director Chris Dixon briefed the teams and issued the first set of maps just before the race began. Teams only received the maps for the first 4 stages, to keep up the intrigue and tension and they received the rest at Transition area 4, where they had to plan the second half of their race.

It was a colourful start as teams lined up in their orange kayaks beneath the Huonville Bridge for the opening 15km paddle stage, which took them down Huon river. A cycle stage then took them into the Hartz Mountains National Park for the first alpine trek of the race, a 12km stage where teams chose which order to collect 5 checkpoints. Many teams reached the summit of Hartz Peak (1254m) in time for a glorious sunset.

There was a second kayak on the Huon River, this time with some white water rapids teams could choose to run or portage and one of the key stages was the following 65km trek around Russell Ridge. Here teams had to collect 10 of 14 available checkpoints, so navigation and strategic route choices were crucial. Teams had cross a steep ravine to reach the memorable checkpoint V, taking anywhere from 1.5 to 6 hours to struggle down and back up again through trackless bush.

The stage teams were most nervous about was the paddle on the vast and remote Lake Pedder, where cross winds can quickly whip up the waters. While conditions were generally very good, it was extremely cold at night, exposed, and the route was shortened from 50 to 35km due to wind conditions. There were bonus checkpoints here with time credits as a reward, and two of these required leaving the kayaks for 3 hours and 1000m of trekking!

Before reaching the finish line there was more cycling on sweeping gravel fire trails through rich forest, another white water paddle, this time on the Derwent River, and one final and dramatic alpine ascent to the summit of Collin’s Bonnet (1250m). Dixon said, “We were very fortunate to have near perfect weather for the whole race and the only night it rained was Wednesday, but even so an alpine peak when the weather comes in at night is very challenging and Broken Compass battled heavy rain and zero visibility conditions on that final summit! Other teams were luckier and had panoramic views of large parts of the course.”

Broken Compass AR has made a very rapid rise through ARWS events to become a qualifier winner, which earns them a free place at the World Championships at Expedition Canada in September. The team only formed in 2021 as a male pair at the Wild&Co. Terra Nova race, where the novice racers came in last. By last year they had moved to a premier mixed team of 4 and on their first outing at Geoquest were 3rd placed mixed team. This was the first time Kathryn Morland raced with the team, and the first time she met them! Their first win soon followed, at the Hells Bells race, and then they took 4th place in the 2024 ARWS Oceania Championships at X-Marathon, all of which pushed them up to second in the ARWS Oceania rankings.

The team raced the first Legend as an all-male squad (3rd overall) and team member Nathan Munson raced The MAGNIficent ARWS Qualifier just over 5 weeks ago in New Zealand! After the race he said, “This race had everything I want in an expedition; we had white water paddling in the day and night, short, fast treks over big alpine country, massive route choice on some of the bigger legs, and a gorgeous paddle through Lake Pedder. Bring on Canada!”

The World Championship will be another big adventure for this upcoming team as it will be a first international race for Andrew Hay and Sean Johnson, and Morland has only competed in one ARWS qualifier outside of Australia, at Adventure Race Croatia. They will not be alone as five other Australian teams have entered the World Championships so far.

Outside the ARWS category there was close racing amongst the women’s teams, with last year’s overall winners, Mountain Design’s Wild Women being pushed all the way by Rootstock Racing (USA), who had ARWS Race Director Abby Perkiss in the team. (Her Endless Mountains Adventure Race will take place in Vermont in June.) The Wild Women held on to stay ahead of their rivals, but could not catch the female pair ‘Wonkey Donkeys’, who stepped up to race the full course after racing the half course at Legend last year and took an impressive 3rd place overall. The top male pair were ‘Keen Talkers’, and the top male team were ‘MOOR Southern Lights’ from Tasmania, where a strong adventure racing community is growing.

The next Legend race will be held somewhere in South Australia from Feb 21-28th 2026, and the next ARWS Qualifier race is Tierra Indomita Vulcania, happening now in the Andean mountains of Chile!

For more information see;

- https://www.legendexpd.com.au
- https://www.wldnco.com
- www.arworlderies.com