LAC Aidan Drummond reports on Exercise GPS held over the weekend of 27 and 28 October:
Saturday morning we arrived at the unit and had our gear checked by Flight Sergeant Brown. Then we loaded the gear into cars and set out for Waitarere Forest. Once we got to the spot where we would be camping we set up the tents. Then we were given a lesson on how to care for and use a compass before breaking for lunch, which was made up of 2 rolls with luncheon, tomato, lettuce and tomato sauce. After lunch we split into flights and set out on an orienteering course, I was in charge of writing down the coordinates, so when we couldn’t find the fourth marker, I was afraid I had made a mistake in writing down coordinates. So we spent a few hours looking for the marker. After a while we decided to turn our attention to finding the other flight.
After searching a few Kilometres up the road, we turned back. When we got to the cross road near the star, surprise, surprise we found the other flight sitting on the side of the road. Turns out they were lost too. So we compared our coordinates. We knew we were doing the same course but in different directions. We still couldn’t find the one marker that eluded us. It was getting late now, so we made the decision to return to camp. As we began walking back down the road, a big black four-wheel drive pulled up. Two officers got out to see what was going on. We showed them the coordinates, and they laughed! Turns out they “accidently” gave us a back bearing instead of the correct one. Whatever happened, the officer who made the mistake (Who will remain anonymous for personal safety) corrected his mistake and we got the correct coordinates and both flights headed out on their courses once again. We were the first team back after finishing the course. Once we got back we did some marching around the forest. Then we had dinner which was really nice. We had pasta, mince and bread. Not bad for the middle of nowhere. After dinner we had free time until it got dark. Then we set out for night navigation. Not only did we have to use a compass with only torch light, but we were on the lookout for one of our officers wearing a balaclava and hiding and scaring people when they walked past. Even though I was tempted to yell out for him to “come at me,” I didn’t. But someone else in our group did! But we made it through the whole course without him scaring us once! After night nav we had some custard before heading off to bed.
The next morning we got up at 7.00 AM and went for a run. We ran a few hundred metres down the road. We then did some stretches and got ready to run back. Out of 20 or so cadets that ran down, only myself, the flight sergeant and five other cadets felt they could run back, the rest marched back in a flight. Then we had breakfast which was spaghetti and mini sausages. After this we had a lesson on plotting a course on a map and we split into flights again and set out on the course we had made. Again some of us split up and got lost so in the end we had to return to camp. After we returned we had lunch, the same as the day before. Then we packed up the tents and gear and returned to the unit. Once all the gear was unloaded we went home. This was a really great and fun camp and I hope to go again next year.
Tommahawk also took out the Superclash aspects of the weekend.