Three Weeks of (very worthwhile) Hell on Earth

Outward Bound, Anakiwa, Marlborough Sounds

February 2007

Warning: Contains 3,000 words of superfluous waffle, plus photos (and eventually maps)
Initially, I signed up to Outward Bound for two reasons. One was that it would allow me to complete both the residential and expedition training components of my Gold Duke of Edinburghs award at once. The other was that it gave me something to work towards in getting off the anti-depressants I had been on all winter.

Arriving at Picton, I was met by a whole crowd of other people being herded about by tanned, fit-looking people who were obviously instructors. My group (all those doing a “Classic” course) got to dump their bags in a truck and then go and wait for a water taxi, while a group of 14 had to change into activity-suitable gear and load themselves and their luggage on to an awesome-looking sail boat. Yikes! There was much discussion amongst the group I wound up sitting with as to what would happen to us on arrival. Some of the talk was near paranoia, including the suggestion that the boat would stop away from the jetty and we would be required to swim in to the beach at Anakiwa…

On our eventual arrival, we were greeted by a powhiri, and then separated into our watch groups. After some really nutty getting to know you games, we were introduced to our bunkroom for the duration of the course and suddenly (and eventually at the same time) it was dinner!

The first few days of the course were definitely the most mentally challenging. When we went tramping, I overloaded myself with kit because I was experienced – giving no thought to the heat and terrain we were heading for. The actual stuff we took tramping was a revelation though – because we had small packs and huge sleeping bags, plus large cookers (cooking for 14 at once), there was almost no space for personal belongings. For an overnight tramp I took one dry set of shorts, top, bra and underwear, a beanie and gloves, a warm jersey and my raincoat. There was no space for anything else!!

Our overnight navigation tramp took us up a steep hill, in the sunshine, on the hottest day we saw through the entire course. I was miserable. Because we wouldn’t see water for the entirety of our trip (no rivers up the hill, and no hut with a water tank), we had to carry all the water we would need for drinking, cooking and cleaning for two full days. This meant each person was carrying about 6L of water, which for a lot of people (myself included) was a lot too much weight!

After eventually successfully navigating our way out of the bush it was back to camp to prepare for the next adventure! Part of our descent had included a steep, slippery mud path, lined with gorse bushes. Wouldn’t you know, I slipped over. And I did what came naturally – put out my hand to catch myself, and instead all I managed to do was slice my palm open!



From there, the next trip was white water kayaking. For me personally, this was the hardest thing I had to do. Even though I’m a strong swimmer, I had a paranoia that I was going to get caught under the water. Day one was fine, I had a great time!



Day two dawned with a feeling of dread that I just couldn’t shake, and it took the entire day to get myself relaxed enough that I stopped tipping out at nearly every rapid! Of course, it wasn’t helped that I knew there was a substantial run to complete to get back to the bus, which was parked 8km back up the river… I’m not a good runner, at all, and I was immensely shamed when the group was forced to run at my pace for the first couple of km’s, and felt worse again that those who got to the bus before me had to run back to me so that everyone finished together. I admit though, that it gave those who were stronger runners more of a challenge, which was good, but that day I would rather have gone home than have had to do that run…

Running continued to be my biggest challenge – the morning after the kayak trip my morning run for PT was horrific. So bad, in fact that I wanted to just go home!! Thankfully that day we did an activity that bought back the positive for me. Called the “life run” it was about who you were, and who you wanted to be. Some of it was hard – “10 things you like about yourself” nearly didn’t happen, “10 things you’d like to change about yourself” was hard to limit – but other bits were relieving, making me feel much better about myself.

Other "smaller" things we did included high ropes, rock climbing and swimming from the other side of the sound back to Anakiwa beach...





Soon enough it was time to go off for a service project. Ours was cutting and shifting wood for a gentleman who then gave that wood away to poor elderly locals. He was neat, and had a cool museum of all sorts of old farm stuff, which we got a tour of on the second day. We stayed overnight in the paddock next to a cobb cottage, which we helped clean out and weed around as well. The work was hard and hot! I discovered that I wasn’t that good with an axe, so I stuck to moving wood around for those who were chopping it instead. I still worked up a wicked hunger and was really glad of the really cold swimming hole we found before dinner!

After a second day chopping and shifting wood, it was off back to Anakiwa, stopping about 6km out for another long run. Yikes! I managed to survive, although was still the slowest in the watch, and Oh the shame of having a truck moving with you at your slow pace with a sign on the back saying “Caution: Runners” when you are the only one any overtaking vehicle would see! I got quite bad cramp in both calf muscles, but kept going because stopping was not really an option. In fact, once the rest of the crew were running back to meet me, I was moving quite well again, and I remember some of them being shocked when they had slowed down to walk with me (because it was all I could manage) to suddenly find themselves well behind me! I may not be a good runner, but I am a fierce walker!

Thankfully our next big activity was sailing, so there was plenty of time to rest sore bodies from chopping and hauling wood! We spent three days out on the water, and got all the way out to Cook Straight in that time. The first day we had brilliant sunshine and were all keen for a swim during the day.



Later in the evening, the wind dropped, meaning we had to start rowing (no motors on these boats!), and then it got dark, and then it started raining… By the time we got to our designated campsite for the night and moored the boat, we were all soaked and it was near on midnight! We also soon discovered that we had managed to break the only cooker we had, so there was no hot food for dinner. Oops!



Day two of the sailing saw me and a couple of others swimming out to retrieve the boat and row it back in to the shore to pick up the others, followed by a compulsory jump off the instructors launch for everyone. Having had no hot food for dinner or breakfast meant that what sunshine we had didn’t manage to warm us very well, and all of us spent the entire rest of our sailing experience in our warm PVC raincoats!



We headed off to Ship Cove for lunch, there finding another watch who were also out sailing and who generously offered us some of their gas so we could cook lunch. We carefully put said gas well away from where we were cooking. Turns out that was where the other watch decided to sit, and they mistook the gas they had given us for theirs – there went the planned steak for dinner that night!

That night we tied up alongside the launch for the night and slept on the boat. It was a great way to sleep, even though 14 people in a 10-meter boat is a bit of a squeeze! Dinner was partially soaked 2-minute noodles (we were given hot water by the instructors) with raw veges and canned tuna. It was rather unappealing, and I wound up giving most of mine away. Thankfully the instructors followed this up with hot water for drinks so we could sleep.

Our last day was a wander back to Anakiwa, stopping off at Blumine Island along the way for a walk. The old battlements on there are really awesome and I would love to go back at some stage. We had the wind behind us the whole way home and managed to sail all the way in to the bay and almost all the way up to the wharf, dropping sails at the very latest safe point.



“There is no rest for the wicked” is the common saying. At Anakiwa it would more commonly be “there is no rest. Except on Solo”! We arrived back from sailing at about 4pm. By 9pm, we were back on the launch, headed for a point of land below the Queen Charlotte Track for our Solo experience. Setting up camp at about midnight (or at least, what felt like midnight. Watches were not allowed), it was a mission just to set up the tent fly and pull out the sleeping bag before collapsing in to bed. Sleep was the order of the day for almost the entirety of the three days we were there. We were confined to a small area close to our tent site and not meant to go away from it. Some of those who were closest to the water wound up heading to the beach, but I would have had to pass a half dozen tents to do this, which would have disturbed those people who I had to pass.



You are given a food allocation and a water allocation for solo. I consumed all the water (and had to be given more on day two), but came home with food, as I specifically decided to only eat when I was actually hungry. I think I was so tired that I just didn’t get hungry! I also managed to lose my voice almost entirely from not talking for three days, combined with the chesty cough I had had the entirety of the course thus far. Being collected on day three and taken to the launch which had fresh bread for sandwiches was great. Everyone in the watch commented that the solo seemed to have worked wonders for me, as I was glowing with what was best described as joy when we got back. I loved it, and keep meaning to do something similar again, but just don’t get around to it!

That evening we had to share with the rest of the group what we had done during solo, as we had been given specific tasks to complete. This took a really long time – it was well on 11pm before we were heading back to our bunkroom. On arrival at the bunkroom we were told that it was time for a briefing and to repack for tramping. Yikes!

At 6am the next morning we were all bundled in to the bus again, heading for the road behind Canvas Town, heading in to the Richmond Ranges for a three day tramp, taking only one of our two instructors. Almost the entirety of this tramp was off track, and up on ridges, camping under fly sheets. Thankfully though, this is a regular route and they have put a water tank in early on day two so you only need just over a days water at a time. First day was a LOT of climbing, and eventually we settled on a campsite and cooked tea, then did a short session of Yoga to stretch the muscles (one of the girls in the group is a part time yoga instructor).




Day two and the weather continued to be fair, if cold in the morning, and we had to make it up to a specific high point before dropping down a couple of technical ridges to the river to find our campsite for the night – an old helicopter landing pad, where we had permission to light a fire. We were so excited! Some of the navigation got a bit tricky, and time started to slip away on us (there is a rule that off-track tramping must STOP at dusk), but we were confident that we would just make time, even with the very sore limbs and blisters that were pestering party members and slowing our travel significantly.

All of a sudden there were screams from further back in the group. Someone had disturbed a wasp nest and was being stung quite viciously. Our stop point at that stage was three quarters of the way down a ridge, with a couple of very small clearings that we could put shelter in to, all on funny angles. Thankfully our party member with the most stings was just shocked, rather than allergic, so we set up camp, calmed her down and fed everyone.

The next morning we knew we had at least an extra hour of tramping to make up to get through our route for the day, so we were up and getting organized as soon as there was any light. Once it was light enough to see clearly, we were off down the hill. Our route that day involved finding a fork in a river as a main navigating point, and we managed to arrive at the river exactly on this point. After refilling water bottles it was off back UP the next hill, and we climbed solidly for over 3 hours until meeting the track to the top of Mt Royal. A late lunch was had on Mt Royals summit – it was a lovely day! – and we decided to go back to the road via the track instead of the longer option across another ridge and down the other side of the next valley.



This turned out to be an absolute blessing, because as it was we didn’t arrive at the road end until nearly 10pm, because so many of us were so sore that walking barely happened. The most challenging part for others was that we had eaten the absolute last of our food at about 4pm, which was only a small bag of scroggin anyway – every other ounce of food we had brought with us (and we had taken extra from the kitchens before departure) had been devoured at lunch time.

We were all intensely glad to see the bus at the road end when we finally got there, especially as our instructor had put a muffin on each seat for us, and then took us down the road for flush toilets and more water before heading back to Anakiwa for a very late (and very tasty!) dinner.
Finally heading to bed at nearly 1am, it was the shortest nights sleep, as the alarm went off at 4.30am for breakfast and run briefing so that we could start our half marathon at 7.30am. The route for the half was quite cool – half of it was on the road, and the other half on the Queen Charlotte Track to enable a finish at Anakiwa. My mood was buoyant, apart from the pain in my legs from the tramping, and this was aided by the singing in the bus I wound up in going around to the start.

Being a slow runner, I started off slowly but surely and near the back of the pack. At the back I stayed! I was second last through halfway (there was a limit to how long you could take to get there before they drove you back home) and dead last home. When I reached half-way, the fastest people were finishing. I only kept going because there was no other way home and my instructor was running with me. In the Anakiwa mind-set, when she caught up with me as tail end Charlie, my thoughts were not “that’s ok, she has to stay behind me” but rather “bugger, I have to keep ahead of her”.

Crossing the line in tears at 4hours 6minutes, I collapsed on the ground and took about 20 minutes to get myself together enough to walk to the showers. Lunch that day was sincerely welcomed, and it was all “treat” food, which was great, but almost too much after such a simple diet for three weeks!

The rest of the day was cleaning up, packing up and sleeping before a final night concert, an early night, no PT on the last morning and home. Finally!!!

Two and a half years later, I can now truly see the changes that completing Outward Bound has instilled in me. Each person changes perceptibly, but differently after the course. I gained a more positive outlook, and more of a belief that “Yes, I can do it”. I still get the winter blues, but they are no longer the debilitating blackness that they once were. I recommend Outward Bound to anyone who needs a challenge or wants to revitalize their life.

Yes, it was hellish while I was there, but it was also fantastic. Good friendships made, challenges met, the art of relaxing in very short time periods perfected. The best and worst three weeks of my life so far!