For those wondering what they missed out on by not travelling up to north Queensland for the inaugural Lake Tinaroo Half IronMan, I can tell you that it’s lots. It’s a great event in a stunning area.

Most people, like me, have probably stuck to the coast on visits to the area, but I soon realised that this has been a big mistake. Almost as soon as one turns inland from Cairns, one finds oneself climbing up a windy road through a spectacular rainforest into the Atherton Tablelands, or Cairns Highlands. These mountains form part of The Great Dividing Range and, amongst them, is Queensland's highest peak of just over 1600m - not an impressive height, but the vegetation certainly is, as it is very dense and lush, with towering trees.

After about 30km of driving, all of a sudden, one finds oneself on a sort of plateau and out in the open, amongst rolling fields. The drive from there was still very pretty, with patches of rainforest interspersed with the green plains and farms - mainly cattle (dairy), sugar cane and bananas. The temperature is noticeably cooler than on the coast and, indeed, it rarely goes over 23C with the nights around 10-12C.

Lake Tinaroo itself is an artificial lake created in the first half of the 1900s as part of a hydroelectric power scheme on the Barron River. It is now also used for leisure activities (fishing and boating), although the accommodation and restaurant options remain fairly limited. This is solved by looking just a little further afield in some of the other small towns within a 15km radius of the lake, in particular Atherton. This is the biggest town in the area (a population of around 6000) and has quite a large main street with a supermarket, fast food and several other restaurants. Paul and I stayed in a B & B on Halloran’s Hill, overlooking the town, which turned out to be a very quiet and pleasant option, even if it did mean a 15-20 minute drive to the race venue.

The small Bayside group met for dinner on the Friday evening at another small town called Yungaburra, which boasts an “international” restaurant run by an Italian Swiss family. The menu was varied and the food not bad quality, but we decided to leave before the evening's entertainment of some traditional Swiss music and yodelling began (clearly very popular with the locals).

The weather had been unusually bad for the couple of weeks leading up to the event, with rain and high winds, but, when we arrived on the Friday, it seemed to be clearing and the wind dropping, and we were quite hopeful for race day. Indeed, we awoke at 4:30 am on Sunday to a still, but very foggy, morning. Driving to Lake Tinaroo, we could barely see the road ahead of us, although we were treated to the sight of a wallaby dashing across it. The fog began to lift as we prepared for the race in the transition area (although still hung around for the first lap of the cycle), and a breeze also sprung up.

The two-lap swim course was around a clearly marked triangle and included a brief exit and run around a pontoon between the two laps. The lake was a pleasant swimming temperature (with wetsuits on) at around 21C, and, although not clear, the water tasted clean and fresh. There were only 100 competitors, so the usual hectic start didn't last too long before the field strung out and I managed to find a rhythm. All went smoothly and the nicely uncrowded transition area meant it was easy not to get lost, and to find one's bike.

The cycle course had sounded fairly complicated, being two 45 km laps, which involved cycling to a nearby town called Kairi, and, from there, doing three out-and-back loops along three different roads, but it was well marked and there were no navigational problems. The roads were nice and quiet and each leg varied a bit in terms of direction and gradient, which made it more interesting than most courses. It also meant that, when the wind picked up, as it did quite considerably in the second lap, one didn't have to sit in a headwind for too long before getting some relief and rest. There were a couple of steep and fairly nasty hills, but most of the course was either rolling over gentle gradients or flat. The hills and the small number of competitors meant that there was barely any drafting and, all in all, I'd say it was a very fair course. The scenery was lovely throughout, being mainly past green fields, stretching into the distance, against a backdrop of the forested mountains.

The run course was mainly along the banks of the lake and on a mixture of gravel and concrete path surfaces. It included some very nasty, steep little hills - not long, but enough to get one gasping for air and one's legs complaining bitterly. It had also heated up quite considerably by this stage and the sun felt very strong (the redness on my arms and shoulders attested to this afterwards). As I had anticipated, given that my legs hadn't felt fully recovered from my Gold Coast Marathon experience in the 8 weeks interim between that and this event, I had very little energy in them and realised that I would have to plod through to survive. I did this, running quite a bit slower than usual for the distance, and was very happy to reach the finish line.

Their timing system, which seemed a bit antiquated, what with no timing chips and electronic sensors, and your number merely being spotted by race officials and entered into the computer, actually worked very well, and one was handed a print-out of all one's splits and one's placing in one's age group within a couple of minutes of crossing the line. I was pretty relieved to see that, although my time wasn't great, I was 2nd in my age group, and so would have a good chance of getting one of the 35 slots for Port Macquarie that were up for grabs in the race. Paul had also had quite a tough race, being way off his usual fitness, and was happy to find himself 6th in his age group, which would mean that he was also in with a chance. Christian, the only one of us to come in under 5 hours (4h49), was also 6th in what was the biggest age group there, and Donna did extremely well to come 3rd in the very competitive 30-34 female age group, both also putting themselves in line for an IronMan slot.

We decided to get out of the heat, and went straight back to our B&B for a shower, before the usual post-race recovery nutrition at MacDonalds.

The post-race party, a feature of the north Queensland Half IM, was held at the Lake Tinaroo Resort, which was a lovely upmarket venue for it. The buffet meal was good; the race video highly entertaining, with coverage of just about every athlete; and Donna and I were rewarded with a bottle of wine each as our prizes.

We spent the next day sightseeing in the area, wending our way down towards the coast. There are some nice walks to do and plenty to see, including huge strangler fig trees, lots of waterfalls, a couple of craters (there are several extinct volcanoes in the area), a coffee roasting factory and several historical towns. Everywhere, the scenery is beautiful, the waterfalls being within patches of rainforests and, in between, only quiet country roads past the numerous dairy farms and rolling emerald green hills. The weather on our last couple of days was magnificent - a clear blue sky and almost no wind, so one could get really lucky for race day!