13 May 17 - Arrival at Camp

Despite the comment that the amended bus trip will be a lot shorter than the scenic route, it is still quite a journey.  We pass quite close to Hilo en route and see a number of pink flags alongside the road which give us an idea of at least one part of our near future.

Camp 1 is sited close to the Volcano National Park where Kilauea, the World’s most active volcano is to be found. It is reported to have been continually in a state of eruption since 1983! Camp 1 is very pretty and gives no indication of the hell that awaits us. For now we are contented souls and our only gripe is that there are no fire pits a la G2G. Hawai’i has strict fire control rules so no unnecessary fires are allowed.

There are 7 of us in tent 7, which is devoted to Mokuali – the God of canoe builders! It doesn’t roll of the tongue the same way that Hualapai did for G2G 2014 and there is not a great deal of background information on Google. Nevertheless, if we have an urge to build a canoe whilst we are here, Mokuali is our turn to guy!

As one of the early arrivals, I make a decision almost immediately that, as shoes are frowned upon inside tents and rain is likely to be an issue, I will sacrifice the Exped dry bag that my food supply currently inhabits and store my trainers inside this. This has a secondary benefit that my food now actually packs better in my daysack as I can squeeze separate packages into nooks and crannies.  M2M is my third multi stage ultra and this penny has only now dropped!!

The remaining tent mates soon arrive and take up positions in the tent. The other 6 of this magnificent 7 are Sarah, who was my tent mate on G2G 2014 and is one of the top lady runners, Cecile from France and Ian from Canada, who were also on G2G 2014, Melanie from Florida, who ran G2G 2012 with Sarah, (young) Chris from England, who is competing in his first ultra and (slightly older) Chris who is also representing Wales but lives in Japan.  As we look around, we notice that, without any malice aforethought, the Brits are lined up on one side of the tent and the rest of the World are on the other. It is as though battle lines have been drawn!!

Attentive crowd at Camp 1

We are called out to the centre of camp for a summary race briefing. For a tropical island it is quite chilly and most people are snuggled inside their down jackets. Sharon from England (who won G2G 2012 ladies race) also has down trousers and looks extremely cosy!! The briefing is mostly stuff we should already know but there are a few people who admit to not having watched Dr. Josh’s medical video!!

The Hawaiian director of tourism (or something like that) delivers a speech welcoming us to the island and stating how happy everyone is that we have come here. He reminds us of the Kukini (‘very fast runners’ in Hawaiian) messengers who were the last people to undertake distances across the island of the magnitude that we are about to take on. We are told that we should feel privileged that we are taking part in the first ever ultra-marathon cross country event crossing lands that have not been run on for hundreds of years. And, of course, we do

Soon enough we are all briefed and it is time to be fed. There are tacos and a nice assortment of fillings to feed our hunger but the biggest attraction seems to be the selection of Hawai’ian desserts on offer. One in particular is made up of a strawberry encased in a sort of gooey sweet batter. The name escapes me and the best I can track down on Google is Manju but that doesn’t sound familiar nor does the picture resemble what we ate.  A question (at the time of writing this post) to the Facebook group usually pays dividends and in no time at all, Tess has come back to say these are called Mochi. Thanks Auntie!!

Info about Mochi

As the meal draws to a close, Colin announces the details of the surprise that has been muted since

Kilauea

arrived. As some of us have already guessed, we are being taken up into the National Park to get a glimpse of Kilauea!! I’m not sure what I expected but it’s a bit underwhelming as the crater is someway off for obvious safety reasons and, although we can see the flaming lava, it’s too dark to see anything else to give any scale to the sight. My phone camera is sadly too inadequate to get a decent pic. In no time at all, we are hurried back to the transport so it really has been a flying visit. At least I can tick it off the bucket list that I don’t actually have: #47 – see erupting volcano a

On return to the campsite, we quickly carry out end of day ablutions and are settled down by 9pm to get a good rest in readiness for a 0430 alarm call. We are to be transported to the start line on Coconut Island in Hilo and need to be ready to move in plenty of time. Tomorrow the shit gets real!