After a six-year absence, the Amazing Race returned to Geraldine last week in recordbreaking fashion.
Taking place on Waitangi Day, a record 39 teams, comprised of 180 people, raced across Geraldine, completing six challenges that ranged from cheese roll-making to bluebarrel rafting.
Organiser Corey Woods said the event was created to be able to give absolutely anyone a chance to take part and have some fun.
‘‘A group of us from St Andrew’s Church created the amazing race Geraldine as we wanted to be able to do something for the community that was accessible to everyone.
‘‘The goal was that no matter what walk of life you came from, your socio-economic background, the amount of family members you had or your age and ability, you could take part.
‘‘This year we had 3-year-olds to teenagers to 60-plus-year olds all having a blast and all able to do some element of the challenges.’’
Mr Woods said it was amazing to see the reception for the event’s return.
‘‘Local businesses and people who took part in the past never stopped asking for it — there had always been messages and people on the street asking when it was coming back.
‘‘For us, it was great to see everyone get on board this year, from local businesses to the amount of teams, it really showed us that the community wanted this event and that they liked this event.’’
Much like the television show of the same name the event is based on, the teams were given clues to lead them to the challenge destinations.
Teams had to tackle the high ropes course at Geraldine High School; sail across a pond on rafts to collect their clue, go down a large waterslide followed by a sack race and maze, tackle a food challenge involving making cheese rolls, brownies and lolly cake, erect a shelter — which was led by the local scout group — and finally build themselves a game such as cornhole or quoits.
The food the teams made in the food challenge was donated to local organisation Bellyful, which provides meals for new mothers.
In the end, local team The Brainstormers managed to pick up the win with a rapid time of only 1 hour and 35 minutes, with second place finishing only three minutes behind.
Mr Woods said it was just a fantastic day from start to finish.
‘‘It was a pleasure to see so many people enjoy themselves and to see the smiles and hear the stories of how everyone went at different challenges was great.
‘‘As a group that’s what we want, we want to spread the joy, spread the love and kindness to people through the event.
‘‘So this year ticked all our boxes.’’
He said there would be discussions about how the event would run in the future.
‘‘We’ll have a debrief and through that we will decide whether we make this an annual event for as long as we can or maybe we do it every second year — we will have to just see what happens as it is a big commitment, we just have to find that happy medium.’’
Anyone looking to get involved or wanting to give feedback on the event could get in touch via the Amazing Race Geraldine on Facebook, he said.
