It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain, and much like hitting your head against a brick wall, an Outward Bound course feels good when you stop.
Over the course of nine days a group of eight particpants and two instructors navigated by land feature and compass bearing through open forest, farmland and thick tropical rainforest. Carrying old style rations (mostly tins and heavy fresh fruit and vegetables)and all of our water for each day, the going was tough in places and it was meant to be.
The story goes that Outward Bound was founded by Kurt Hahn who wondered why so many fit young merchant seaman were dying in lifeboats in 1941, whilst their older colleagues were surviving. He determined that the young sailors had not experienced enough hardship and set about establishing courses to introduce them to hardship and toughen them up.
So the course is meant to push people outside of their comfort zone and has a lot of hardship for hardship sake. For example, when navigating, we were forced to go directly across country when the destination was accessible by walking along the road.
Among the challenges were abseiling 35m out of a tree, climbing a large swinging ladder while connected to your partner, paddling the length of Toonumbar Dam, performing community service and spending 24 hours alone in the bush.
We also played some of those silly games you play in those corporate development courses. I say ’silly’ because the games themselves are ’silly’ by design. It is how the game is debriefed that the power of the game shines through. Unfortunately we were let down in this respect. There was no real debreifing model that was followed and as a result people merely talked about what they did, not how they felt when they were doing it, the other times in life they feel the same way and how they might do things differently in future. As a result the level of personal development within the group was nowhere near what it could have been and that was disappointing.
I am glad I went on the course because I now no longer have to wonder about what they are like. Would I recommend it? This depends as it is a bit of a gamble as to who you get as instructors. For some, the physical challenge might be enough to help them blossom as a person and ‘develop character’ but I suspect most would also require the psycological input.
The course inspired me to verse (see The Hyacinth Hunter) and has made me more confident that I can complete another multi day walk, but on balance I was disappointed.
The highlight of the course was seeing the look on the instructors face when I told him I was an Outward Bound “secret shopper”. That sure put him out of his comfort zone.
Here are some more pics.
Deborah decending
Deborah on the abseil tree
Deborah on terra firma
Monitor Lizard near abseil tree
Toonumbar Dam
Birds on Toonumbar Dam
Natalie Sven and Clare rafting
Rafts on Toonumbar shore
Natalie Gemma and Clare gathering hyacinth
On the shores of Toonumbar Dam
Weeding water hyacinth
Bush cook night
Natlaie and Chris on Jacobs ladder
Puddle like an Escher drawing
Misty trees near Mount Lindsay
Near Mount Lindsay lookout
AJ on solo
Solo Menu
Misty morning trees
Along Ben Lydia ridge
Cliff resting
Forest on Ben Lydia Ridge
Lunch on Ben Lydia Ridge
A baby staghorn
A well earned break
Chris and Deborah plan a route
Chris consults the map
Ferns in the Gully
Natalie resting
Morning sun on the trees
Sunrise at camp
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