Our research station ....
... and our sleeping tents at the other side of our research area!!
Not a week after I got back to South Africa we headed to Kleinmond to collect research data at a 3 day trail running race. The race, surrounding area, and our research subjects were amazing ... the crazy storms that came through were quite an adventure!!We arrived pre-day 1 to set up but due to an impending storm noone was staying in the race village. Day 1 started a few hours late and all went well. Day 2 was a wonderful trail marathon though some beautiful scenery in the Kleinmond area. In the evening there was talk of a storm but the weather was great and we were hopeful ... we went to sleep in our tents. The eye of the storm was meant to come through around 5am and there were thoughts that it'd pass before the start of the race ...
I woke up thinking it must be the middle of the storm as our tents blew around inside the bigger white canopy tent ... and it was not even midnight! Our physio friends soon left to sleep in their cars and finally Annali and I also went that way. We were wakened to evacuate the last of our stuff and then we helped take some tents down (think my years of camping with Christians served me that when a storm comes you help take down the tents!).
We slept in our cars, thanked the faithful study participants who fought through to find us after the big tent was deemed unsafe after some beams fell down, and the final race day called off.
Our participants have been amazing and we learned a lot about being flexible and the joys of field research!
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