Stage 2 - Jungle Marathon - Monday 12th October

Stage 2 consisted of 22km of swamps, mud and flat tracks. Plus of course lots of jungle tracks. With very little elevation on this stage it was pretty straightforward apart from the nasty swamp sections. The problem with swamps is that you really don't know how deep they are as the bottom is mainly made up of all the leaves that fall from the trees. So in some sections where it looked shallow, sods law it turned out to be real deep and vice versa.

And it was during this stage that we had our first encounter with bees. These nasty little flying stingers were also to feature on the long stage where they very nearly caused me to pull out of the JM.

Anyway, during one section of swamps we were slowly making our way through and another Irishman who had by now joined our steady pace, Dermot, was leading us. Mark, myself and a few others were about 5 yards behind when all of a sudden Dermot cries out "Arrgghhh! Bees, Bees, I'm being attacked by loads of bees". Of course we all backed up as poor Dermot struggled to get out of the swamp and onto drier tracks where he could leg it. By this stage Mark had worked out another route just left of the bee hive but these little stingers don't give up too easily.

As we tracked about 5 yards left of the hive the now 'very disgruntled' bees were making a beeline (pardon the pun) for anything within range and as I was bringing up the rear of the 4 person train I started to get some stings up the rear. Thankfully Dermot had distracted and drawn most of the bees and we all managed to get away with a few stings each.

As we caught up with Dermot it was clear he was in a lot of discomfort and although we initially felt sorry for him, after he told us he was stung all down his leg and head, it did cause a little laughter as we recalled his 'manly' cries of "Arrgghhh, Arrgghh" as if being attacked by a ferocious Jaguar. For the record the bee hive was for some reason at ground level and it was as a result of him initially stepping onto the hive that caused him to get the initial surge of bees onto his legs, closely followed by them stinging his head. Thankfully they weren't the much feared Hornets which are just downright nasty and dangerous as one competitor in 2008 found out. He (Roy from Canada) was stung so badly by hornets his neck swelled up and blocked his airways and he eventually passed out. More about that one in a later post.

Anyway, apart from that little episode the rest of the Stage carried on without much difficulty and we reached the Finish with plenty of time to spare.

I AM RAISING MONEY FOR CANCER RESEARCH UK: http://www.justgiving.com/Jungle-Marathon-2009
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