ignite23 Days 10-11

Falling back asleep after you turn your alarm off is never a good idea- but that's exactly what I did this morning, only re-waking just before 8am, leaving me to rush to get breakfast and run over to the muster point in order to check in to my activity by 8:15am.

Bad weather on the other hand, meant that all 3 walks that morning would combine to simplify things, so I had 45 minutes to wait for the final walk group to show up. All in all, of the 3 walks, only 4 leaders and 7 venturers showed up, so we loaded into one van and headed off for our walk to Rakaia Gorge.

Wet weather persisting meant that not only was it still spitting, but the grass and bush surrounding the track was also soaking wet - so damp clothes for all of us. An hours walking later, and we reached the coal mine (not very interesting, just a fenced off entrance though we think we saw a piece of coal), before carrying on to reach the top of a hill (through a paddock of knee high wet grass sadly) and the lookouts 

over the gorge.

While on a sunny day, they would have provided excellent views, the bad weather meant that we couldn't see far, and the sky was grey, so we continued onwards down the path. Eventually arriving at a turn off to the boat ramp, we headed down and ended up on the bank of the Rakaia River - so took the opportunity to skip stones of course (with varying levels of skill amongst our group). Then back off to the minivan, another hours plus walk to get there though, and back to camp for lunch.

Lunch followed by a nice warm shower for me when we got back to camp, before I headed into the dining pavilion to chill out for a bit. Later on, I headed over with James to see if we could do an escape room, so teamed up with two others who were waiting and started the escape room.

The one we chose to do was called Money Heist, where we had to unlock numerous safes and gather all the money before some robbers came back to find their loot. And while we did not break any records, we managed to find all the money (with a little help though) under the one hour time limit.

Following on from dinner saw us come to the closing ceremony, so we all gathered around the main stage to listen to a speaker talking about his life experience as a paralympian, watch a video of various activities at Venture, and finish off the Venture.

Then time for the last party of Venture (though I did disappear from it a few times to help out on a kidnapping for another patrols mascot Gorizza). Lots of glowsticks there, so I spent some time making a long glowstick necklace and other apparel. I ended up staying up until 1:30am partying that night, before heading to bed.

Early breakfast meant that I had lots of time to wander the site and chat to people I knew while I waited for my tent to dry. Once dry, I packed up my gear and tent, and headed back to farewell people as they left. The Rover cafe were selling remaining food at a discount, so I headed over there for a drink and bag of chips (and back again another 3 times later on!). Elsewhere, hot chips for free at another area, so I grabbed some of those while I waited for my parents to pick me up.

Now that the event has come to an end, I guess it's time to reflect on it, so here goes - What a blast!, 11 days (if we include the pack up day) of fun filled adventures, lots of new friends from both NZ and Australia. I enjoyed all the activities I did (hot air ballooning especially), though thinking back now I should have done more for some of the onsite days, but who doesn't like a lazy day every now and then. Many fun filled moments with my unit on phase 1, and just around the site and doing activities on phase 2. 890 photos (a lot of blurry ones though) taken by me, and 30 minutes+ of videos to remember Venture by. And a lot of fun filled memories to remember it all too now!