We went to bed Thursday night with the instruction to leave our phones on and to expect a call between 10pm and 6am. We got the call from our respective team leaders at about 4:30am and were told we had half an hour to get to the club.
There was one mix-up where someone forgot to call one of the rookies, so he got there a little bit late, but everyone else was at the club ready to go by just after 5am and it all started from there.
We piled on the bus ready for a demanding three days in the Flinders, but we didn’t even make it that far before we were all kicked off the bus.
The Star Force officers, who ran most of the camp, made us unpack our bags so they could go through our stuff. We had been given a strict list of things to pack, but some of the guys brought chewing gum and lollies, so the officers confiscated all that and basically anything else we didn’t need.
After each and every bag was checked we were made to do push-ups and sit-ups ... that should have been a good indicator as to what the weekend was going to be like.
Eventually, we got back on the bus and drove for another two hours before we got to the base of Mount Remarkable. There, we had to split up into our teams and carry a stretcher with a big tyre on it up to the top.
It was really hard, but everyone got through ... well, almost. The terrain was pretty rocky and unfortunately I think Jon Giles rolled his ankle. You really had to watch where you were stepping because of all the rocks, but it was tough because we were moving so quickly. The whole exercise took close to four hours, so by the end of it we were pretty tired and hungry.
We got back into the bus, but still there was no food. Instead we stopped at another location and the Star Force officers got out the heavy ropes for us to carry through the gorge. That took about an hour and then we were told to go off on a 10km bike ride and that was pretty solid.
Once we had finished the ride, they finally fed us a couple of sandwiches and a Powerade each, which wasn’t nearly enough for most of the guys, who were pretty hungry by that time.
That night they drove us to a nearby town and made us do a circuit on the local oval. One group was carrying logs, one was boxing, one was bike riding and the other worked on football skills. We spent 20 minutes at each station and went around the circuit seven or eight times.
After we finished the seven circuit rotations the Star Force officers cooked a barbecue and then told us to sleep out in our swags on the oval.
Read part two of Broges' training camp diary
The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.
