from the 13th to the 16th we did survival. the week started with self defense on Monday, witch was quite cool.our instructor is black belt in karate so a lot of the moves came from that. on Tuesday we went out for out door survival.the scenario was that we were going on a day tramp up the valley.so we didn't have much food nor tent or sleeping bag. we had to stay out for 2 nights, the first night we stayed as a group, witch was cool had a big shelter that could just fit everyone wet.though around 1am it stopped raining so i joint toddy out by the fire and slept with a bit of room. the next day we collected fire wood for the main fire to keep it going in case we couldn't get one going. then we started out solos this meant on talking to anyone inept our instructor Dave . we started at around 2pm i found a tree that had partly fallen over so decided i could just lean my walls up against that. As everything was wet i didn't try to get a fire going thinking as long as i didn't get wet i will be all right..i started making my walls out of Thatch but this was taking too long and i had my walls rather steep. i then went on to punga leaves, i only had a small knife with half serrated edge,this made it very difficult.i started off trying to climb the pangas rather than knocking them over but this was real hard.i then went on to tying my knife on to a stick and using the reach of that to cut them down.this worked wicked.i must have had round 50 panga leaves on my hut by dark. i made the door at the low end of my hut this way it would keep more heat in and even better if i did get a fire going .i then went and got some bedding to keep me insulated from the ground. after that i decided i wouldn't try to startd a fire and just go o bed. i had a dry pear of socks on, fleece pants, over pants, thermal, T shirt, fleece top and my swanni as a blanket.i had a candle beside me to help with heat and moral. i lasted the night eating my musily bars i had saved, i was kind of cold.but in the morning when i herd about how hard some of the others done it. i also thought of a chant... this is my swanni there are many like it but this one is mine, with out me my swanni is nothing, without my swanni i am nothing, i love my swanni and my swanni loves me....
we left our group shelter up so that if anyone was getting real cold and struggling they could go back and be dry with a hot fire. but i was disappointed with 6 of my group that went back. some as early as 7 pm not really giving it a go. two of the ones that stayed out even went to the length of running around to keep warm then going back to sleep then running again when cold.i was impressed by them treating it like the real thing.
this trip to me seemed like of of the cheapest but one of the most important.learned allot and i think the group learned allot also.
and the best part when we got out of the bush the polly brought us all fish and chips $60 worth gone in seconds :)
