Features
Hooked on a feeling
Cpl Corinne Boer

Edition 1164, April 19, 2007
 
Training the adventurous: Cpl Rob Burgoyne and Cpl Warren Dunn watch as Cpl Ben White abseils.
Photos by Sgt Martin Baume, Sgt Mick Sander and WO2 Dave Carter
 
Pausing after conquering another canyon are WO2 Darryl Heaslip, Cpl Adam Elmore, Cfn Jeff Cohen, LS Garry Danaher, Cpl Dale Cooper, Lt Leonie Muller and Sgt Jim Skett
 
LCpl Shaun Gillot drops into the freezing cold water.
 
Participants wade through the Wollangambie River, having just completed the Water Dragon canyon.
‘YOU’RE all right,” called out Lt Leonie Muller. “No I’m not, my ankles are above my head,” Sig Sascha Rose yelled back as she dangled upside down over the edge of a steep 10m cliff with her feet wedged in a crevasse.

Lt Muller used her newly acquired skills to calmly talk Sig Rose through the obstacle and abseil safely to the bottom of the cliff. Lt Muller, 144 Sig Sqn, was tested with her first real group of participants after four weeks on the Unit Adventurous Training Leaders (UATL) course conducted by the Adventure Training Wing (ATW) at Kapooka from March 11-April 6.

“This was the first time I had to really facilitate and help and teach people.

I was really surprised to know how much I’ve picked up,” she said.

Forget DPCUs, dress of the day for this course is tight striped leggings underneath sports shorts, footy socks pulled up to your knees topped off with a flannelette shirt and a beanie.

The aim is to keep warm and avoid hypothermia, which is one of the many dangers the UATLs need to be aware of when they are leading groups through the cool, murky depths of the canyons.

A UATL assumes responsibility for the safety of the group so the course is designed to be intense and keep the students under pressure and working out of their comfort zones. The students gain qualities of leadership so by the end of the course they can relate what they have learned back to the battlefield.

The course consists of two phases which began with students learning basic abseiling and vertical rescue skills at Kapooka. One of their first tests was to master the tower training.

Cpl Robert Burgoyne, 10FSB, said the biggest challenge had been getting over his fears.

“It was difficult going out of my comfort zone like when we did the breaks on the tower at Kapooka,” he said.

“You’re falling and you have to stop yourself without having a person to break the fall at the bottom.”

The second phase of the course was conducted in the Blue Mountains where students began at 6am each day.

Instead of toasting marshmallows round a campfire in the evenings, students were debriefed and planned the next day’s activities. One evening students honed their night navigation skills when they were out longer than anticipated.

“We had a couple of guys that were injured which slowed us down. We then went into the longest canyon that’s here in the Blue Mountains and we did another canyon after that one,” Cpl Burgoyne said.

“We took one route out which wasn’t right then we did a bit of rock climbing and abseiled back down and regrouped.

“We eventually found a way out up this ravine and followed it out through the darkness with our headlamps on.”

Maj Daryl South, OC ATW, said students received the skills to run an activity and develop their leadership.

“We teach them different leadership methods which includes facilitation. It’s not all about ‘you do what I say because I have the rank’,” he said.

ATW runs eight courses a year, including climbing, caving, canyoning, advanced roping, backcountry skiing and alpine survival, white water rafting and sea kayaking.