Supporters

Most of you arrive in town with a team of supporters to cheer you across the finish line. Whilst you’re out running on the Kepler Track, there are lot of things your support crew can do.

Supporters’ Activities

Here are some ideas on how to fill your time whilst waiting for your runner to cross the finish line.

  • Visit the Te Anau bird sanctuary/Punanga Manu o Te Anau to see the rare flightless takahē as well as kākā and kākāriki.
  • Take a cruise across Lake Te Anau with our partner Real NZ to see the luminous shimmer of hundreds of glowworms.
  • Hire a bike and cycle along the Lake 2 Lake trail on the eastern side of the Waiau River.
  • Take a 20 km drive to Manapouri to see New Zealand’s most beautiful lake and enjoy a coffee.
  • Take a scenic helicopter ride over the Kepler Track with Southern Lakes Helicopters and see if you can spot your runner. Special offers available on race day.
  • Follow your runner’s progress

You can follow the progress of your runner with the Sportsplit app. There are transponder readers around the course so you should be able to get some idea of what time your runner is likely to finish his or her Challenge.

The only easily accessible place on the course that you can see runners before they cross the finish line is at Rainbow Reach. That’s only 10km from the finish line so you’ll need to make sure you get back to the Control Gates in time to cheer your runner across the finish line and give then a hug for completing their personal Challenge.

Finish Line

The Finish line is a hive of activity all day. Watch all the runners complete the Kepler Challenge or Luxmore Grunt whilst enjoying a coffee from the Sandfly Café or a hot dog and hot chips from the Rotary Chip Van. There’s a bouncy castle for the kids and you can listen to the humorous commentary.

The first runners on the Luxmore Grunt course usually finish from 9.00am  with the first Kepler Challenge runners expected to cross the finish line any time from 10.30am onwards.

Support runners

Sometimes cheering your runner across the finish line just isn’t enough for your supporters. Kids especially love to run across the finish line with mum and/or dad. We love to see families supporting runners to complete their personal challenge. All we ask is that you don’t trip up any of the other runners coming in to complete their challenge!