So I totally wrote this months ago but funny story, I forgot to press send so it almost looks like I havn’t blogged for a while. How hilarious right?
Anywho, Kununurra was a grand success!!! Basic wrap up: 3 days, 5 Medals, 6 champions! But more on that soon.
The trip up was very eventful! I was put in the back with 5 of the kids and a lot of the trip was trying to get the kids to listen to more than 5 seconds of a song before they said they hated it. Believe it or not, Elvis and Bob Marley were the big winners so there were some moments of general happiness. While I was driving, I heard from the back Mindy telling one of the kids to put on her seatbelt. The conversation went a little like this:
Mindy: “Put your seatbelt on!”
Mindy: “Put your seatbelt on!”
Shania: “It is on!”
Mindy: “No its not!”
Shania: “How do you know!?”
Mindy: “You’re on the floor!!!”
This was only out done by when we got back in after a stop at the Turkey Creek Road House and as I was getting in the driver’s seat, the kids yelled out, “Nahh! We want Mindy to drive!!!” Naturally, I was a little hurt… but then when I got in the back one of the girls said, “Yeah! We hate Mindy’s singing!” So that made me feel a bit better.
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| Dried up Sturt Creet |
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| Sturt Creek |
When we arrived we went to QUANTAF which was an organisation running within Kununurra High School and they let us stay in their building during the night which was great because they had a kitchen, toilets and showers. Not to mention 2 ping pong tables, a big TV and a basketball court.
Jordan and Naomi watching an AFL biggest hits DVD
The next morning we headed over to the oval to start proceedings off. The kids were really shy and didn’t want to mix with the other students despite our efforts so we found our spot in the shade and listened to the announcer. There were 5 schools; Balgo, Warmun (another community about half way between Halls Creek and Kununurra), Wyndum which is about 100km north of Kununurra and then the two Kununurra High Schools, including the super humans from Kununurra District High School.
I won’t go chronologically but instead go through all the athletics first and then all the fun in between.
The first event was the 200 which let’s just say was a lot longer than they thought it was! That being said, every one of them gave all they had for at least 100m and two of them were really up there both coming 4th. The next race was the 800 which Mindy made them all run but it was very evident that most of them had not been asked to run that far non-stop for a long time but still, again was very proud of their efforts! There were also a few field events which I didn’t see while watching the races but at the presentation at the end of the day, Kion was stoked to be given a Bronze medal for his triple jump.
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| Stretching Up |
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| Kion's first sign of emotion after getting his medal |
The girls really enjoyed the throwing events and Heidi would have won her discus if she wasn’t throwing 2 years above her but 4th place in that situation wasn’t bad at all! It was great to see the 400’s just because for Kion, who I had worked with a lot before the events it was a good distance for him because it was only just further than he can run quickly so he was really stoked with himself when he finished only just 4th. Then Josie (my super natural athlete/future Cathy Freeman) ran an awesome race and finished very strongly to hold out a late challenge for the Bronze medal.
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| Perfect Technique! Good work coach! |
At night almost all of the students had long or triple jump under lights which was fun to watch but my favourite bit, possibly of the whole meet was hanging out with Josie. We were speaking to each other having a full conversation in this language the Secondary Girls have invented and there was a group of Kununurra girls looking at us weird because they thought I could speak an indigenous language.
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| Naomi doing tripple jump. |
On the last day it was a fairly short day including the 100 which most of the kids really enjoyed because they all had people to push themselves against even if it was just another Balgo student. It was funny because about an hour after her race, I was talking to Josie and she asked why she didn’t get one of those place sticks and I asked “Didn’t you come 4th?” and she said, “No, only two people were ahead of me I think.” And I could tell she was pretty sure she came 3rd but was too shy to say anything.
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| Kion - 100m |
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| Naomi and Shania - 100m |
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| Josie and Heidi - 100m |
Probably the best all round event was the u16s Javlin because I took under 16 literally so I entered out 15’s, 14’s and 12’s J This was one we weren’t able to practice at Balgo but they were naturals! In the end, Shania who had been a bit disheartened was happy not to come last competing 4 years above her age. She also took the best photos! Josie had won the event by a fair bit but while we were walking away, another girl walked up and asked, “Can I make a late entry?” so we had to watch from a distance as she took Josie’s title away!
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| Josie |
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| Shania - told you she took good photos |
The day ended with a relay which I almost got roped into running but ended up just watching before we went to the final presentation.
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| Josie's presentation |
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| So proud! |
So now onto the unathletic aspects of our trip! Our first visit was to Ivanhoe crossing which was running with some vigor which was a nice sight to see but more entertaining was Jordan’s bamboo spear throwing and Kion’s fishing with a coke bottle on the end of a fishing wire he found.
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| Jordan, Naomi, Josie & Kion |
Another adventure we took was out to Lake Argyle which was about an hour out. It was a pretty nice drive and when we got there we went to the caravan park and Mindy guilt tripped the owner to let us go in the pool. It was an amazing ‘infinity pool’ which over looked the Lake… only problem was that it was absolutely freezing!!! In the end only Mindy and I were swimming so we had fun!
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| We went upside down for a second, it was so wierd. |
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| Infinity Pool |
While others went shopping, young Jordan Gordon and I went to put in the flat tyre for repair. In the half hour we had to fill before we could collect it, so we decided to go on a bit of an adventure on our own. First of all we went to the roadhouse and got a slushie. Then I saw the lookout called Kelly’s Knob and thought it would be nice to check that out quickly. It was very nice and Jordan and I had a very nice time. It wasn’t until we got back to the car that I realised I didn’t have the keys with me and then looked inside and saw them firmly in the ignition. Basically I had shown my Balgo side by leaving the keys in the ignition when I get out but then showed my ‘big city’ side by locking the doors and double checking all the windows were locked as well. Jordan was more devastated by the fact that his slushie was locked inside. He still comes up to me at least once a week saying, “Hey, remember? Us been go up the big hill. Remember?” so that’s always fun.
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| Young Jordan |
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| Thought we'd enjoy the sunset while up there. |
Our last adventure before leaving was to ‘Zebra Rock’ which turned out to be just a type of rock found at the place with black and white stripes so I couldn’t work out why the kids were so keen to go! Then they went down to the jetty and started throwing bread into the water feeding the hundreds of catfish waiting for them. We then started back to the car when Shania said “I wanna talk to the cockatoo!” so we all followed her and sure enough there were about 4 cocatoos who greeted us and asked how we were, twas very amusing. The kids then all grabbed as many half ripe mangos as they could carry and hopped into the car to go home. I was actually very impressed at their ability to skin and eat a mango with almost no mess! The only thing more impressive than that was their ability to bite all along the rim of a coke can to completely take off the top. It just looked painful!
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| Cat Fish! |
Talking Birds!!!
The space in the back of the troopie
So I think that pretty much sums up the trip. I really hope the meet becomes an annual event and Balgo continues its involvement because although there is a massive difference between the communities and the town schools but I think the more regular it becomes and the more they get used to the idea of competing in athletics, the better they will get!
Congratulations Balgo Athletics Team!!!
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