The fast, the keen, the exhausted and the smelly have arrived or are due to arrive in Queenstown this week after completing one of the world's most scenic yet challenging races.
The Godzone Adventure race began on Sunday on New Zealand's highest mountain, Aoraki/Mt Cook,
and continued to amaze the competitors, who - after all the sleep deprivation and arguments with team members throughout the week - returned with a smile.
What makes the race so good? I asked Magellan team member and Wanaka resident Jo Williams, who arrived with her team-mates after 99 hours on the trot.
''I don't know ... It's amazing trekking through all that country. It's just stunning.
''It was a great few days; it was a real adventure.''
OK, so the scenery is good, but why not take a walk, a bike or a kayak at a leisurely pace, with sleep somewhere in between?
Last week, before the race, Team Orion Health member Wayne Oxenham told me adventure racing was an addiction and since he started 10 years ago he had been unable to stop. Not even his 2-year-old girl, Ashley, could stop it.
He admitted he had slowed down in the competitive stakes and this year was entering for the pure ''fun'' of it.
Defending champion and 2013 winner Team Seagate crossed the finish line on Wednesday in 75 hours and 25 minutes, having slept for less than two hours during the entire race - showing exactly why it is current world champion at this discipline.
The fifth-placed Magellan team, which included Mike Kelly and Tom Lucas, both of Queenstown, and Mike Walker, of Auckland, decided while trekking towards Hawea they would sleep rather than make the canoe leg through the night, and disadvantaged itself by eight hours, Ms Williams said.
''It was a crucial thing trying to get there and we needed to sleep. We had a sleep!''We were cruising along and then realised we could make it. That was one of the lowlights of the team. It was tough; we were all down.''
As it turned out, the team closest in time to Magellan, sixth-placed Moa Hunters, could not find one of the last checkpoints and the eight-hour disadvantage did not change a thing.
Magellan was sixth at last year's inaugural Godzone and fifth this year - so will it be back for another round?
''Oh gosh, we haven't discussed that. We would like to be.''
The race
New Zealand's highest mountain, Mt Cook, was the official start location for the race on Sunday morning.
Competitors traversed glaciers on fixed ropes using ice axes and crampons before heading to the Mueller Hut and back down to Lake Tasman.
They paddled among icebergs on the Moraine Lake then whitewater rafted on the Tasman River to Lake Pukaki.
After this, teams transferred to their bikes at Braemar Station and by nightfall some of the lead teams had trekked over the Dingle Burn mountain range near the Ahuriri Valley - testing even leading team Seagate and leading one team, Team Thule from France, to pull out of the race.
The course headed towards Passburn on the south side of the Lindis Pass, where competitors cycled over Mt Grand then onward to Albert Town near Wanaka, where a kayak leg was to follow on the Clutha River and Lake Dunstan to Lowburn near Cromwell.
The final stages of the race took
the remaining competitors over the Pisa Mountain range to the Snowpark Lodge for another transition to their bikes for a fast leg down to Arrowtown.
Before getting on the Queenstown Trail back to the resort, teams had a go on the Canyon Swing one-by-one.
