29/03/2026
Kia Ora GO 4 12 followers! First of all, I want to offer a huge thank you to David Tait and his crew and Trackme NZ for so many years of supporting youth AR in NZ. Epic humans doing real Mahi in the name of kids and adventure, what's better than that!
I've known David for years now both professionally and personally and was honored when he reached out to see if I wanted to help continue the legacy of GO 4 12, which I've agreed to do. Ultimately this will be in partnership with a number of other organizations NZ wide who have their fingers in the AR pie and are involved with Youth development, so this space is a bit of a work in progress.
But for now, given that I'll be the RD for the 2026 edition, I thought I'd make a quick introduction and an update on where we're at, so here goes.
My name is Andy Magness, and I'm the director of the FEAR Society down in Fiordland, soon to be the FEAR Trust. I've been putting on grassroots adventure and endurance events for the last two decades and competing occasionally myself in a wide variety of events around the globe. Here in NZ I've been responsible for the somewhat underground WTF events (if you know, you know), and more recently, the less underground The MAGNIficent Adventure Race. I've been passionate about mentoring youth for as long as I can remember, and have been active in this regard on multiple continents, primarily around climbing and endurance/AR. I was one of the early mentors behind FEAR Youth, a team of young kiwis who are now known around the world for their success on the global stage of expedition length adventure racing. And I'm a lifelong dirtbag, in case that matters.
Enough about me--now about the event! We're still in the process of finalizing dates--the original dates of Labour weekend were decided in a rush to meet a deadline by Secondary School Sports, and didn't offer enough time for consultation with the community. Bummer (I guessed poorly)! These dates don't work in conjunction with other high profile AR events (namely Hillary Challenge), and so we're looking to shift earlier, likely sometime in early September. I expect Secondary School Sports will be none too impressed, but as they say, 'you can still make omelets with broken eggs'. (That is a saying, right? If not, don't you reckon it should be?)
The tentative venue is in Twizel. Central to SI teams (ish) and a pain in the ass for NI teams. Sorry. We do anticipate moving the NZSSARC between the North and South Islands every year or two to make sure the 'pain' of travel is evenly distributed.
This year we're moving to 4p teams (my sources say it's been 3p team in the past) to have things more in line with the rest of the AR world, and because it's hard to paddle a 2p kayak with 1 (or 3) people! We're also only going to have 2 distances, a 6 hour and a 12 hour. The 12 hour will be the champs, and the 6 hour more of a taster and open to more junior students.
The full details, dates, and website should be done in the next week or two and we'll post links here. We're aiming to have registration open by the beginning(ish) of Term 2 so bear with us. In the meantime, get excited, sort out your teams, and tentatively save the weekends of early September on your calendar!
Ngaa Mihi, Andy Magness
