By Claire of Southwell

A Northsiders point of view.
So far the Venture has been fantastic. It’s been full of fun, adventure, freedom and excitement. We’ve had the chance to go all over Perth and see the things that we want to see, with the people we want to see them with. We’ve been on trains, busses and even the ferry to the zoo, all for free with our lovely Transperth cards on our ID tags.Rachel and I have become self appointed Contingent Leaders, and are doing a pretty fine job of it, filling up the Contingent HQ fridge with milk and then getting ACT Contingent ‘badges’ and distributing them.
On pre tour we all became great friends. I know I came to Venture with only 2 friends and now I’ve got a lot. We dyed hair and went to Adventure World. We went to Cottesloe beach and learned how to get from Salter Point Scout Hall to Canning Bridge to Perth City to Cottesloe beach and back by the public transport system.This helped a lot with my expedition, and even though there was a guy from Perth in my team, I still believe my knowledge of the transport system helped a lot. There was a lot of running involved, up hills, around the Freo cemetery, carrying 12.5kg of flour, up stairs to catch busses and to beat the other teams. At the end of day 1 my team was in the lead! Unfortunately we didn’t keep this up (except for when we caught the 98 instead of staying on the train to get to Freo) but we tried our hardest. Our gnome “Bitch” stayed with us the whole time, except for when the rovers stole it to leave in a canoe and then in a park. There were a lot of gnome jokes within the Amazing Race contingent. I gnome the team that won deserved it.
Expeditions also saw new friendships, and I have heard a lot of people say they didn’t want to leave their expedition because they didn’t want to leave them. But the ACT contingent got back to the Venture site after expeditions and was ecstatic to see each other. There was plenty of running and hugs and screaming. Somehow we have all found a balance of seeing expedition friends and ACT friends.
Offsite activities have been good. Some people have done Paintball and now have massive bruises, people have been to the zoo and seen elephants, back to Adventure world to finally go GoKarting, spent the day at Rottnest Island and Fremantle, and even been scuba diving! You have the freedom to go offsite even if you haven’t booked an activity for that day. Rachel and I are planning a trip to the Aquarium tomorrow which takes me through a suburb I used to live in!
Tomorrow is the last day, and although we are all very tired and missing our families, friends and pets, we’ve all made great friends (and significant and insignificant others) which we are all very sad about leaving behind. Hopefully most of us will stay in contact with these people, and they will stay lifelong friends.
We have all talked and we think that people who pay out Venturers are very foolish because as Venturers we have the opportunity to do things like the Venture and everything it offers, which is not something a lot of youth organisations can provide.
=D (sorry it’s not really all that epic. It’s 10:30pm and we’ve just done State Vs State... which we did pretty awesome in!)

Cam & Chris try the Venture out.

After a few days of onsite activities we discovered that we didnt have alot of photos coming in that showed what was happening. After a few unsuccesful attempts at uploading a video of Kate & Anna R (Red Rock) riding a mechanical bull, we sent out our intrepid reporters, Chris D (Red Rock) and Cam (LBG) to experience the activities. Anna R took a few photos, which are here for you.

To Come:
Tonight the state vs state games occur, and we should have some great shots later tonight or tommorrow morning. Also Clare from Southwell, is going to write an epic tale of adventure and the video of the bull riding is now viewable via youtube.

Photos from the tall ships expedition

The ACT Contingent had three venturers participating in the Tall Ships Expedition on the STS Leeuwin II which is pictured at left during the event. Angus (Campbell-Duntroon) Mirriam (K2) and Vanessa (Red Rock) took the challenge of crewing the Leeuwin, and photos of each of them are here for your viewing.

Vanessa told me a story of rollingup the square sails on the main mast, which involved climbing up the mast and rolling each sail by hand from the top. The story sounded incredible until she got to the part where the crew member above her, an experienced sailor was badly sea-sick and threw up. Apparently Ness can keep working in such conditions when she is halfway up a mast ! There are plenty of other stories, and hopefully you will hear them first hand in the next few weeks.

And the Venture Opens Officially

Well tonight the venture was officially opened and all of the venturers have returned to the main campsite at Fairbridge. Despite some small issues,it appears that nearly everyone has had the time of their lives.

The video footage below consists of two more interviews, with Anna and Kris from Red Rock and from the opening ceremony. We are all very tired and so tonights blog entry will be short, and we will be back tomorrow.

Adventure Tour Perth the amazing race and Sailing

Today we were able to visit those in the adventure tour, the amazing race and also sailing. Everyone once again apeared to be having fun, but a degree of fatigue does appear to be setting in. While we were visiting Sam from Erindale at the sailing expedition, we were able to witness her capsize no less than 5 times in 15 minutes as the gusty conditions made it difficult for her.
The photos on the left were all taken by Anna's (From Red Rock) camera, although she appears in three of them. They were taken on the Perth Adventure Tour.
I will also upload another 3 interviews, which features Anna & Kris from Red Rock, Hannah from Southwell and Sam from

Erindale.

I understand that the quality is not so good. It is deliberate to enable as many people as possible to watch it, and for it not to be a huge download cost. The good news is that the originals are much better.

The Surf

Today the contingent team visited the "Coastal Crusaders", and "Sun, Sand & Fun". The Venturers we caught up with were allhaving a good time, although we did send one to see a doctor about her hand. We asked a few of the venturers that we caught up with (Anna D, Elouise, Halie and Jacinta) a series of questions, and you can see the answers on this video, which is about 4 meg for those who care. There are more photos below ..

The Coastal Crusaders were having another surfing lesson, and we caught up with Alex and Liz from Weston Venturers, Jacinta from Stromlo Forest and Kate from Red Rock. During the short time we were there Kate got up a few times, but they all did very well.

So far we have visited 7 units which contain ACT Venturers and five of those units have elected one of those ACT venturers unit chair. Congratulations to Kirra, Jess M, Liz, Chris D and Ben M. Also Congrats to Fleur who was elected vice chair of her unit. Notably Kirra is the only ACT Venturers in her unit.

Tomorrow we visit more expeds and every one is back onsite friday. We hope to give you more to look at from that time on.

- Max & Ben

A Visit to the Scuba Expedition

EXPEDITIONS

All of the contingent is spread across Western Australia for the next few days as they participate in the major activity of their choice. We have groups of venturers sailing on tall ships, participating in the "amazing race", (which Clare's from Southwell Venturers team is leading at present due to her advanced knowledge of the metroplitan transit system) and learning to surf at Margaret River.

Today we visited the SCUBA Diving Expedition which are presently in the pool diving phase of the activity in north fremantle. We have three venturers on this expedition, including Jess, Rachel and Jessie.

instead of loading individual photos, today we have them presented as a montage. ENJOY

An adventure unfolds

Hello Everyone,

The ACT Contingent to the National Venture arrived in Perth on Tuesday after a mammoth 66 hours on the Indian Pacific. The ride across was a great experience and at the end of it, we had really just become acustomed to being there.

But on arrival in Perth we soon settled into 1st Salter Point Scout Hall, and its luxurious surrounds on the banks of the Canning River and we spent our first full day at adventure world, a water theme park in Perths south. The photo (by Mel A) above shows Anna, from Red Rock Venturers in the waterfall in the main pool. Below there are photos taken by Kate and Jess S during the train trip and at adventure world.

We have now had opening ceremony, as an informal pool party and now all the venturers have moved onto the expeditions phase. As photos become available we will try to get them up here.

We will be uploading more photos and info each day from here on. Please comment, or ask for specific information. More tomorrow.

Max

a few photos

Ben and Rachel on the "vomitron".
and again !

Awaiting a ride at adventure world

Jess and Katie at Cook SA after 44 hours on the Indian Pacific

and on the train ...