Emu Gully 2016
Emu Gully, an awesome experience and an extreme challenge. On Monday, the Leadership team and I were pushed to the limits both physically and emotionally at Emu Gully. Throughout the day we learnt and showed lots of teamwork strategies and we learnt about other people, and our own strengths and weaknesses, by doing lots of activities as a team.
When we arrived at Emu Gully we were introduced to our instructor (Adam) who talked to us a little bit about what the goal was for the day. Then we went off to start the first activity. Our first activity was a listening activity where we had to listen to the instructions and follow them exactly as they were instructed. Then at the end we spoke about what we could have done better and what we did well.
After this we headed over to the tunnels. Adam spoke to us about the ‘Tunnel Rats’ from the Vietnam War. Then we tried it out for ourselves by crawling through small underground tunnels as a team. At the end of the tunnels there was a rock climbing wall that we had to climb around before climbing out of the tunnel. On this rock climbing wall we had to help other people in our group get around the wall, if we had made it out or had already fallen off the wall into the water below.
Our next activity was ‘The Bridge’. Before this activity, Adam told us about how in World War 2 all the captured Australian soldiers were forced to make a bridge to cross River Kwai in Thailand. Then, we had to cross it but there were a few changes in the bridge we had to cross…. It was a see saw and two people coming from different directions had to cross at the same time. Once the two people met at the top of the bridge one person would get down in a ball and the other would carefully climb over the person on the ground. Luckily, no one was a sacrifice and fell in the water. After everyone was off the bridge we went to the dining room for lunch. For lunch we had a burger and chips.
Next up, was the mud run, the thing everyone had been waiting for. The mud run resembled part of the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea. In this activity, we had to use lots of teamwork and encouragement so that the whole team could get through. After the mud run we were pretty much covered from head to toe with mud, so we went and had a swim and got to jump off diving boards into the water.
At the end of the day we all brought home a whole new concept about what leadership and teamwork means. What a great day!!! Thanks, Emu Gully for helping us learn these things! Thanks, Mr Ward, Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Matthews for taking us along and going through it all with us! Thanks, Springfield Central for giving us the chance to become better leaders for you!