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Outward Bound 
 

Outward Bound - December 2018

Briar Burtenshaw, Year 13 —

Last year I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship from the Otago Community Trust to attend the Mind Body Soul Outward Bound course in December.

Mind Body Soul is a three week course at the Outward Bound school in Anakiwa, Picton, where you spend time exploring the Queen Charlotte Sound and learning to push yourself to limits beyond your ‘limits’ with 13 strangers. I heard about Outward Bound through my older brother who got a scholarship three years ago, and after hearing him say nothing but good things about it, I knew it was something I would love to do.

The main reasons I wanted to attend the course were to; learn how to work with other people with different values and interests than me, improve my fitness, push myself to my REAL limits and overall just add this amazing opportunity to my life experiences. All these things I wanted to take away from the course were all things that I believe will help me with my future goal of joining the NZ Police Force. This has been a goal of mine since the start of high school and to be able to start working towards it by adding to my life experiences while still at school was an awesome opportunity.

While on the course we did so many ‘out there’ and challenging activities. Some of the highlights and moments I'll never forget were: spending two nights in the bush solo, tramping 18 hours straight (8:30am till 2:30am), sailing with my watch into the Cook Straight and completing a half marathon on the last day of the course. All these highlights have one thing in common; at the time they were hard/scary/or a bit rough but it was all worth it in the end. On the solo I went slightly insane because of boredom, I spent the last three hours of our 18 hour tramp sobbing at the back with all my aches and blisters, I shut my eyes through the whole Cook Strait crossing with fear of capsizing, and I won’t even talk about the half marathon. Although this was the case at the time, it wasn't long after when looking back at each experience that I realised how I would probably never do many of those things again and I was, and still am so grateful for the chance to do them, plus how many people can say they've done what I did. I learnt that I could push myself to my limits and know everything will be ok in the end. I am proud of myself for persevering and completing all the challenges I faced.

I wouldn't go as far to say Outward Bound changed me but it was definitely an experience I will never forget and one I will forever recommend to everyone. No matter your status, your fitness levels or how attached you are to your phone, Outward Bound is an opportunity that you should never pass up. With our school being lucky enough to give out at least one scholarship a year you would be silly not to get your application into Miss Young.