Southern Highlands & Christian School

On Sunday 20th of September, 5 students departed at 6.15am to the Cataract Scout Park in Appin. At 8.30am after a big breakfast, the event was ready to begin. There were many cadet brigades, all with much more experience than our own. We were assigned into strike teams made of three brigades with one strike team leader. Once our group was formed, we headed off to our first activity, which happened to be caving. Being stuck with 15 kids inside a cave on a 25 degree day wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences, as you can imagine, just ask Mr Sloan! Shoving 15 teenagers, who’ve never met before, into a small cave, meant that we all had to become close friends pretty quickly. Sometimes the cave was so small we had to get on our belly and army crawl our way through. Once the caving was over, it was on to our second activity which was called ‘Challenge Valley’. Here we had to conduct a search and rescue operation and put out a fire. This was a great exercise for learning to work together as a team. After this we were provided morning tea and the chance to rehydrate before our final activity. We were placed in a scenario where we had to use all our skills. We used the suction pumps to get water out of our static water supply and deposit it onto the fire. The exercise was an excellent opportunity for crews to experience multiple scenarios that challenged our skills, as well as introduce us to new experiences and situation. All in all it was a great day (the food was great too!) Report by Bethany R