Adventure racer heading for Sweden | Rotorua Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Rotorua

He has passport stamps from across South and North America, Asia and Europe but as an adventure racer, Rotorua's Brent Edwards doesn't collect the usual holiday snaps.

His last race in Australia led to an infected leech bite and an encounter with a stinging bush which left him with lingering memories he would prefer to forget. His next trip will involve continuous daylight in northern Scandinavia.

"Each race is only as hard as you make it," says Edwards, navigator for Team Orion, New Zealand's top adventure racing team and the current world champions. His teammates are Marcel Hagener, Stu Lynch and Fleur Pawsey.

The foursome are a new-look Orion team and the XPD adventure race in Cairns, Australia, was a chance to see how they all fitted together.

They could have won, leading by an hour, but halfway through the final stage were forced to pull the plug.

After encounters with freshwater crocodiles, snakes, poisonous jellyfish and spiders it was a tiny leech that was responsible for the decision.

"We'd be walking along and there were 10 or 15 leeches on our legs at any one time and we had to pull them off," Edwards said. "They crawl under the gaiters and down the inside of our socks. One racer had one on their eyeball.

"I got a foot infection from a leech bite. We had to withdraw with 40km to go. It might sound far to some but we'd already done 900km by that point. It was pretty frustrating but our main goal was to get together and do a hard race and we achieved that."

In two weeks, Team Orion will race another multi-day event, the Explore Sweden event in Scandinavia, a straight-line race from the tip of Lofoten on the Norwegian Atlantic coast, over the peaks of the border mountain range and down the river valleys to the Swedish Baltic coast.

Again there is no pressure to win as Team Orion has set its sights on the Adventure Racing World Championships in Spain later in the year.

"At least in Sweden we won't have to make sure we have enough battery power for our torches and it will be a bit warmer than here. But, at the same time, we won't have that night time to help us work out how many days we've been on the go," said Edwards.

"Cairns was our first really big race together for us to find everyone's strengths and weaknesses. A lot of the time, we won't know what they are until day four. I think we're all stubborn and that's a strength and a weakness.

"You have to be stubborn to do these races. Competitive and determined at the same time."

Edwards combines his love of adventure racing with a role as compliance officer with the Rotorua District Council, a job which, he said, also had its moments of excitement.

When not working or racing Edwards can typically be found in the Redwoods mountainbiking, or on his kayak in one of the district's lakes.

Once a month, his weekends include an overnight expedition to test his navigational skills and endurance.

Edwards is single and living close to his playground is a bonus.

"All my time is taken up with racing. It's a big commitment and it's been like that for four years. I was hoping to have a holiday in Australia after our race but instead of taking four days we were out there for seven and then I spent 24 hours in hospital."