Swans take on Bluff Knoll

On Saturday 17th December was the WAFL seniors Bluff Knoll trip, which consisted of the boys arriving at Steel Blue at 9:30pm Friday night hopping onto 3 buses and making the 5+ hour journey down to the Stirling Ranges National park.

We managed to arrive safely with a couple of close calls from the native wildlife on the way down.

The boys were broken up into 5 groups with each of them carrying a backpack with 10kg of weight in it for all 3 climbs.

The first ascent started around 5am, this involved each of the groups hauling up a large heavy 30 metre rope to the summit. The rope was to be left at the summit and collected at a later date. The weather on the first climb was challenging with rain falling on the summit.

The second climb involved two member of each team being classed as essentially blind, the two “blind” members wore goggles which had been painted out with very very poor visibility.  The groups had to aid the blind members of their team to the summit, this involved a great deal of team work and trust as it is difficult enough to climb with full vision!

By the time the final climb had started many/all of the boys had started to fight some internal demons, the thought of stopping and giving up would have crossed the mind of all of them! The third and final climb involved the most amount of team support and unity to ensure that all members finished the challenge that we had started and all did. The boys went up on this climb with just their 10kg backpacks but at the summit collected the ropes to return to the base.

Started as 5 groups finished as 1!

7.5 hours of work on Bluff Knoll

2.5 hours average round trip

21km total  distance covered

Following this we all went to the Kojannup bowls club, which Peter Hodyl had arranged for the group. This was absolutely perfect and the boys very appreciative of a nice meal and cold drink!

We arrived back at the footy club at 6:30pm Saturday night, a huge effort by all.

In summary for many of the boys this was the hardest thing they have ever done before both physically and mentally. A great finish to a really solid pre-season and a really solid foundation for us to launch into the new year for season 2023.