Team Wurzell Taff 3 peaks trophy    By Shaun Harris aka Bushy

On Thursday 25^th October Myself, Steve Williams, Dan, Andy Blunsden, Simon Elvins, Jason Farr, Lardy and Keith were joined by Steve Gittins and Craig to make up a team for the three peaks trophy held in Mallow, Co Cork.

We all met at Fishguard for the 2:30 pm ferry. After a 3 hour crossing and another 3 hour drive we all eventually made the hotel bar at around 9:30pm as the event doesn’t start until Friday evening we took the opportunity to acclimatize to the local atmosphere until 3am.

Friday 26^th

All the teams got together at 2:30pm for signing on and then again at 5:30 for the draw for the witch hunt. The wurzell taffs were drawn against team Dilligaf. We were given an envelope with some photocopies of 3 maps and a grid reference. The first team to find a mask which is on a post at the grid ref. and return is the winner. Dan cross referenced the grid ref. onto our maps and Steve navigated us out the mountain which was about 20 miles away, we then used Jasons GPS receiver to pin point the exact position, it was at this point my temperature gauge went of the scale so while I sorted out the problem Jason led the rest of the team to the mask, they returned about 10 minutes later with the mask and we headed back to the hotel. We were the second team back with a mask and the team we were drawn against didn’t even find the grid reference.

Saturday 27^th Was the start of the main event, but before leaving the car park we all had a laugh at Andy Bs expense as Jason had concealed a reversing alarm on his car and we had put in the missing fusein the night before. We were given a list of tulip diagrams to get us to the start point on the Ballyhouras mountain, again Steve navigated us to the start point and from there a marshal took us to our start point on the mountain. We started off up hill on an old forestry track that pushed through gorse bushes which we soon found that without door tops pieces of gorse broke off and ended up down your back and the needles are very sharp, after about half a mile we came to a white arrow that directed us into the trees and down into a gully we wound our way through the trees and in and out of the gully, collected a punch and continued out to the track, at the track is an arrow with a grid ref. On, we set that into the GPS and followed it to the next section. The Ballyhouras is the largest mountain in the competition so there can be quite a distance between sections but even these transit sections can be challenging in fact Steve Gittins broke a CV on one of the tracks. Our second section was also through a wooded section which is where the tray back comes into its own, Punch 3 was attached to a dead tree in the middle of a marshy bog this was an ideal time to for me to try out my latest toy a double front winch, I had to drive up over a steep bank and down into the bog, the front of the car disappeared upto the wing top and Steve disappeared upto his knees as he tried to get the winch ropes. The winches pulled very well we got the punch but then pulled the car straight onto a large tree stump which was hidden in the marsh reeds, Steve G put his rear winch onto my roll cage and pulled the car over to release the stump from my steering and Jason pulled me backwards. We eventually got the car out but not without burning out a winch motor and bending the panhard rod on the stump. The sections throughout the day were very challenging and we managed 15 in total.

Sunday 28^th was another mild day which this time took us to the Nagels our first section started with a climb up loose rocks and it was here that Andy B showed us all who was king of the hill climbs, his Td5 flew past the point where we started winching, from there we had 2 more sections through tight woodland which involved a bit of winching until we reached the main gravel track. We drove to the next section which was a short one with a simple drive up through the trees then down into a gully and out over a stone wall, it was here that we lost some time because when we put the  grid reference at the end of the section into the GPS it pointed us into the sea about 5 miles south of Cork. We waited around for the marshal but eventually when they didn’t show up went in search of a section, we found the next one and again this was ideally suited to the traybacks. Our 6^th section was lead by Andy B and it took us down hill, along through a cleared piece of woodland then across a water filled ditch and back up to the track, it was here that Andy got a bit throttle happy and rammed his off side wing into a tree and rite in front off Fiona the official photographer. All of the cars winched out of the section and we lined up for the next one. This section had not been driven  and started with a steep down hill through a washed out gully. I went first and used the rear winch to lower down and then ended up wedged in the gully and had to use the front winch to pull me down hill, Jason followed in a similar fashion then Steve decided he could drive the section without the rear winch, as Andy B wasn’t driving this one Simon got in with Steve not knowing he was going to drive it. Steve drove about 15 feet when the car nose dived into the ditch and went up onto it’s nose and was stopped from going end over end by a small tree. Steve ended up using his rear winch after all to get him back on 4 wheels. Our next obstacle was a deep ditch with a stone wall on the opposite side we used the ground anchor to drag the stone into the ditch and used waffles to help bridge it, we got the 3 cars across and drove the rest of the section to the punch it was here that we found tyre marks from previous teams that had driven in from the easy exit got the punch and reversed out (Only cheating themselves). When we reached the track the Edwin the marshal was there and he told us that our next section had a very steep climb down and back out and the Devon team had the fastest time on this section of two and a half hours (Simon bucks rear winch rope snapped on the decent) so as the time was getting on this would be our last section if we chose to do it (One team the on the Saturday took 6 hours to complete it) we decided to tackle it and I lowered down first using nearly all of 100ft of winch rope and still didn’t reach the bottom, just as I was clear of the bottom Steve started over the top and his winch rope snapped he rattled down through the frees hitting everyone on the way, Andy B and Jason followed both gripping their seats. The climb up was shorter but a lot steeper with a large tree root half way up. We all made it to the end in 1hr 50 mins and where very pleased with our efforts. We only managed 8 punches on day 2 but they were a lot harder.

On Sunday evening there was an event dinner in the hotel and we all collected our official T-shirts.

Monday morning was a 4am start to get the ferry and we made it home at about 4pm absolutely knackered.