In the second week of the October holidays, four of our Year 13s took on five days of what the adventure race organiser describes as “the toughest outdoor sporting event that you could do at high school these days".

Emily Prout, Phoebe Ozanne, Alannah Kys, Caitlin O'Brien, and the rest of the Columba College - Otago Boys' High school mixed adventure racing team were the first school team from Dunedin (or anywhere south of Wanaka) to qualify for this competition in the 20 years that it has been running! They went on to place 8th overall after the week of hard challenges, which demanded much determination.

The week began with two days of six hour-long challenges. These included tyrolean river crossings, cave orienteering, MTB hill sprints, constructing a firing machine, performing SAR/first aid, bridge innovating, and rafting! The team were placed 6th after this stage, with some very sore muscles and sleepy minds.

Next was the expedition which involved two days of foot-based trekking on an overnight rogaine across Mt. Ruapehu. Beginning at 9am on Wednesday and finishing at 4.30pm the next day, together we battled snow, blizzards, rocky terrain, intense sun and sunburn, a frozen tent AND frozen mince! The team were 8th from this stage, covering over 60km, with the New Plymouth BHS-GHS team coming in an insane 300+ points in front of anyone else (that might just be a number but honestly that's superpower worthy!)

The final day was a 50km Multisport race involving paddling, running and mountain biking. This day was much more about which teams can hang on in there for the longest. The team crossed the line in 10th place in this race after some pretty crazy teamwork.

It's safe to say that there were a lot of hobbling walks around Wellington airport that following weekend!

Thank you to Ms Hopcroft, Ms Beardmore, Craig Cummings, the Otago Peninsula Trust, Wrinkly Rams Omarama, and all of our families for helping us to get to this epic week.

Hopefully, Columba will be back!