AROUND THE COLLEGE & BEYOND 

Chillagoe 2022

By Neil Gregory - Head of Year 10

The arrival of the Explorers and Prospectors groups at Chillagoe airport on Monday of week 4 marked the start of a fantastic camp after weeks of preparation last term. The boys arrived with loaded backpacks, brand new LifeStraw water bottles and some good bushwalking attire with the mood a mixture of excitement and anxiety. 

The Explorers set off for 9-Mile Waterhole while the Prospectors had to adjust to a new route to Crooked Creek necessitated by recent flooding which impeded access to the Roadhouse campsite on the Walsh River. The Explorers spent the first two nights at 9-Mile Waterhole completing the Where’s Wally, Billy Lift, Flying Fox, Island Hopping and Water Tap activities while the Prospectors spent a one-night stopover enjoying the clear drinking water in the normally dry creek bed of Crooked Creek. 

Tuesday began with a hike to Coke Corner and a traverse down to Fisherman's Waterhole for the Prospectors where some students enjoyed a late afternoon hike to the warm springs while others relaxed or went fishing. 

The Explorers and Prospectors were off to an early start on Wednesday as they had to conquer Mount Election on their way to their respective campsites of Fisherman’s Waterhole and 9-Mile Waterhole. Some blisters and heat rash were definitely starting to slow up the boys' progress. The Prospectors were into their activities for the last two days at 9-Mile Waterhole while the Explorers were navigating the long trek from Fisherman’s waterhole to Crooked Creek for the final evening. 

There were some quality piscatorial catches along the way with Robert Thirkell, Archie Hagan and Nick Showniruk hooking large Sooty Grunter, Henry King, a large Garfish and Shaun Whitmore a turtle. Plenty of Redclaw were caught and eaten at 9-Mile Waterhole.

The group activities have become a tradition on the camp with groups fiercely battling it out to become overall champions and having their equipment trucked out for the final hike on day five. The Prospectors champion group was the Floppers with the JRJ’s becoming legendary for the Explorers. 

I thank all students and staff for their participation in the camp, which was again most successful in developing personal attributes of organisation and resilience and building relationships. The camp would not be possible without volunteers Anthony Cunneen and Charlie Hansen, and the generous support of Steve and Jane Crossland at Chillagoe Station.

We Warmly Welcomed our Visitors from the Land of the Rising Sun

By Jay Killoran - Head of LOTE

For 12 days, St Augustine’s College had the privilege of hosting 24 high school boys and several of their teachers from Tohrei Gakuen in Fujisawa City, Japan. The students had a wonderful time visiting the reef and Kuranda, and attending ESL, Art, PE and Science classes. They participated in Wednesday sport and experienced, first hand, life in an Australian school setting in boarding and the classroom through lesson integration with their Saints buddies.

The College has a long history of hosting international exchange groups from various countries and continues to have a strong focus on Japanese language and culture in our academic program offerings.

The focus now turns to St Augustine’s 2023 Japan tour, with planning underway for an exciting cultural and linguistic experience.

A Bright Day for the Black Knights

By Larry Belshaw -  Saints chess aficionado

A small but determined band of students recently set forth on the perilous journey to TAS White Rock to compete in the third round of the Gardiner Chess FNQ Chess Tournament. At stake: potential qualification for the state finals in Brisbane.

Captained by the redoubtable Andrew Robertson and anchored by the stoic Hayden Coombs, the engine room comprised the ebullient Ma brothers – Futa and Yuta. Morale was boosted on the day by the presence of Ethan Donnelly, Saints’ old boy and former chess captain. Assisting with the event, Ethan’s calming influence and sage advice doubtless helped calm several fluttering hearts.

Whatever the case, the Black Knights began strongly and, critically for the final outcome as it transpired, took maximum points from the first round. Six gruelling matches later, tensions were high as the Premier Division results were announced and it was made known that the Black Knights had tied with TAS for first place. Initial disappointment at being relegated to second on countback was replaced quickly with excitement at the news that the top two finishers had been awarded a berth in the state finals.

Thanks go to Gardiner Chess for organising the event with their usual efficiency and TAS White Rock for their hospitality in hosting the competition.

Saints Cyclists Win Silver & Bronze in the      ELEV8XCM Race

By Logan Stevens - Year 8

ELEV8XCM, is a cross-country mountain bike race. As the name suggests, it’s held over eight hours, with the aim of completing as many laps as you can within that timeframe. You can ride solo or in teams of two, three or four. The course uses selected trails within the Atherton Forest Mountain Bike Park. Each lap is approximately 12ks long and uses mostly green (easy rated) trails. The event village, pit/transition area as well as the start/finish area, is at the gun club on Rifle Range Road. 

St Augustine’s entered four student teams, 11 students in total, and one teacher team. The students did exceptionally well with Brandon Goode, Mason Ryan and Fynn Whiteside taking home silver in the junior 3/4 category. Finn Slade and Jack Bowe finished with bronze in the junior pair category.  One team completed 10 laps and the other nine in the eight hours.

The students enjoyed chasing the teachers, Mr Elliott and Mr Anderson, round the track.  It was a really fun day, and Saints hope  to next year involve more students and even their parents for some great family spirit competition.

Preparing for the Gruelling Ride

By Mason Ryan - Year 8

To conquer this year's ELEV8XCM we needed to get into the mind of a professional cross- country mountain biker. Luckily Mr Elliott arranged an afternoon with Gavin Scott, a worker at Giant Cairns, and a champion in XC and ELEV8XCM.

On a Thursday afternoon, in the first week of  term, Mr Scott passed on his wealth of knowledge to us. His first point was that when training, we needed to change the way we rode by varying the intensity. Doing the same trails, the same way and for the same length of time once a week meant we wouldn't progress in the amount of biking we needed to do. A great way of varying intensity was creating a unique plan for the week that had rest days, intense hill climbing, endurance rides and so on.

For two days we needed to plan what we were going to eat to get enough nutrition and carbohydrates into us to do our best. On the day of the race, I used energy-improving gels. For my lap off I ate the food I wanted so I could deal with the horrendous taste of the gels. Over eight hours my team set a realistic goal to do three laps each, adding up to nine laps for the whole eight hours. Realistic goals we needed to set were the times taken to do our laps. 

This race was extremely demanding, so I set motivators for myself so that I would finish each lap. Some of them were to beat my last lap time, or to beat or get close to a friend’s time and to tell myself that I would get a huge bucket of chips with gravy and a steak burger when I finished my lap. Here are some comments from my teammates about how they prepared for the event:

Fynn Whiteside: “A couple of weeks before the race, we rode the whole course so that we knew where we could speed down quickly, what to take our time on and where to have a breather or a drink. The closer it got to the race I ate loads of carbs and got good sleep. ”

Cooper Sheriff: “Before the ELEV8-hour race my team and I did hill training around Edge Hill and Whitfield. We rode Bellaire Drive and the Yellow Arrow three times a week for three weeks. The night before the race we ate steak, and a bacon, cheese and egg burger the morning of the race.”

Cricketing Success for Some Saints Juniors

Four of our Year 7 students, Ashton Salerno, Samson Pittorino, Brody Bakurski and Ben Maher represented the TCC U12 cricket team at the recent trials in Tolga. Samson and Brody made the Peninsula team. Well done boys!