It finally hit me when we were driving in a convoy of Eco-Challenge vehicles to the start line at 11 pm….
Volunteering with the Eco-Challenge this year was the experience of a lifetime. Being within a race of that magnitude and seeing how all the cogs work together made me appreciate it all the more. This year, a new expeditionary style was debuted with teams having more navigational control in their hands. The propensity for error was extremely high, with only 23 teams out of 81 finishing the race.
As part of the web team, I was a field reporter and got up close to the competitors. If they were kayaking down a river, we were in a long boat right next to them. If they were biking, we were driving alongside, and if they were trekking, we were trekking with them to get our stories.
Fiji is an amazing place. The sights, sounds, and faces are unique and absolutely memorable. Working with Eco brought me closer to places and people I may never have met, and to some of the most remote yet breathtaking regions on this earth.
Wading across the Navua River, snorkelling off the shores of Wayasewa Island, drinking kava with the villagers of Navala, driving around busy Nadi town, and pushing a muddy van stuck enroute to the remote Savioune Falls are just a few of the experiences that will enrich my life forever.
Find out more about the Eco-Challenge at www.ecochallenge.com
Comments (5)
[...] – Taken during the Eco-Challenge expedition race in [...]
[...] expedition racing organization called Eco-Challenge back in 2002. As a field journalist, I wrote up dispatches and interviews with the competitors from deep within the Fijian jungles. Saying it was the experience of a lifetime is a gross [...]
[...] first “break” occurred when I was chosen to be one of 100 volunteers working with the Eco-Challenge Expedition Race in Fiji. I worked as a field journalist where we were to trail the teams all over the islands and dispatch [...]
[...] Every trip leaves such an imprint on my life and refuses to be just a check mark off some “I went there!” list, be it hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu or doing some photojournalism work in Nigerian villages, but my most memorable trip was working as a volunteer field journalist with the (then) Eco-Challenge Expedition Race in the most remote areas of Fiji – http://lolaakinmade.com/2008/06/14/eco-challenge-fiji-2002/ [...]
[...] journalist, my job was to write up daily narratives, interviews, and press releases, sharing the experiences in remote Fiji with the rest of the world on a daily [...]