SAREX - If It Ain't Raining, It Ain't Training...

I've said on a number of occasions now that joining Search and Rescue as a volunteer here in Rotorua is one of the best things I ever did and it's for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's a great way to give back to the community. Secondly, we get some awesome training. And last, but of course, not least, it would be rare to come across such an awesome bunch of good natured, hardy outdoors-loving types in one place as I have stumbled across at SAR. I feel at home amongst this awesome family.

 

I'm still learning the ropes here at SAR and I was looking forward to our SAREX held half way through July. These exercises are held twice a year and are a realistic simulation of a real search to give us newbies a taste of "life in the field". Our briefing had been emailed to us earlier in the week, and was something along the lines of "Arrive at SAR base 7am. Bring overnight pack, there are no huts, you will not be home all weekend." Sounded good to me!!!

In my bid to avoid missing training sessions that weekend, I had taken it upon myself to knock out Saturday's four hour session on Friday evening after work, enjoying a stunning night in the forest under the stars, with views of the city lights reflecting off the lake. I arrived home at 10pm, packed my gear and hit the sack for some much needed sleep.

The weather forecast for the weekend had been looking spectacular, but as we were driven to our search base, it became apparent that the Mamaku had different ideas to the rest of the country. The moment we were dispatched to our taskings, rain began to fall from the sky. I think we all tried to convince ourselves in vain that it would blow over, but as the day wore on, it became more and more apparent that the unexpected weather was here to stay for the weekend...The dingy old barn that our ops and communications crew were stationed in was looking mighty comfy in comparison to where we were about to spend our weekend! Lesson one in Search and Rescue; Always be prepared!

We donned our hi-vis vests (sexy) and were dispatched in teams of four. I found myself in a team led by Nick, along with Dave and a young girl named Kat. I didn't know any of them really well, but, as with most search and rescue personnel, you could pretty safely assume you were with a good bunch of people regardless of who you ended up working with. Our first task was to find a suitable high point to set up the repeater for our communications equipment. We found a suitably high knoll, got permission from the landowner, then assembled the repeater and it's hideously large aerial in amongst the sheep in the paddock, hoping it would still be there when we came back for it.

There were four teams out in the field and each team had different, unrelated scenarios to work on. Ours was to sweep an area that was approximately 500m wide by 4km long and find the missing party (Jude and her son John). To make the scenarios realistic, there was, in actual fact, a lady named Jude and her son John who had been instructed to head out into the bush and "get lost" for the purposes of our exercise. On the map, our area looked pretty straight forward. Not really any contour lines to speak of (that is, the area appeared relatively flat) and it was a fairly small area. We figured with the four of us, we would be able to sweep the area 100m apart and still be within sound line of each other... How wrong we were...

Upon entering the bush, we discovered that the area was, in fact, incredibly dense bush full of undulating terrain so steep crammed into such a small space that the numerous scrambles, descents and bluffs didn't register on the topographical map of the area... It became very quickly evident that we were in for a hard weekend at the office. After testing our initial sweep search method, it was obvious we needed to change our tactics... We could barely get 10m away from each other without losing our sound line, let alone 100m, and the dense bush was horribly disorientating, even for those of us that were quite experienced navigators. Following a consistent bearing was nearly impossible because each time we had to circumnavigate a fallen tree, or a patch of supplejack, the bearing would be lost. It was decided that searching as a team would be the best method, but it would mean that the area we were able to search in the allocated time was much smaller.

Supplejack became the bane of our existence over that weekend (in fact, possibly moreso than the weather)... It tripped us up, blocked our path, and caught our bags when we crawled underneath it. Thank God for Dave's machete! The rain had me wishing I had worn my waterproof pants (which were in my bag, but hadn't made an appearance in time for me to avoid getting myself soaking wet). We followed a west to east line as dictated in our tasking but the going was slow. Along the way, we radioed in information on our whereabouts and observations we had made of the area that would be useful in providing direction for the search. The rain had well and truly set in and we were covered in a concoction of sweat, rain, dirt, foliage, moss and possum droppings... Delightful stuff. At least the company was good, and it was fantastic to be out and about in the bush, not to mention the awesome little cave we found in our travels, set into a wall of rock that had been seemingly placed right in our path, causing us to scramble up and over, then back down into (yet another) gully full of windfall and supplejack.

As the day wore on, we found ourselves emerge on the old "disused" railway that bordered one edge of our search area. The railway is used by railcruising (a local tourism operator), and we were lucky enough to be suitably entertained by Dave's "woogy-woogying" of a carriage that came past (much to our amusement his antics were wasted on a tourist that failed to see him waving his arms around on the side of the track). Having not found our lost party, we headed back into the bush, where we were instructed to rendezvous with Team number two, who have given us their coordinates (and unbeknown to us, had been searching for same the lost party from the other end and found them). Our venture back into the bush was a little more trouble than one would think. Firstly, we had to scramble back down the embankment we just climbed out way up, then we had to climb up the other side. We finally arrived on a knoll, at the coordinate given to us by the other team, to find they weren't there. A slightly frustrated exchange on the radios confirmed a new set of coordinates, but we were then instructed to find a suitable campsite for the evening and set up camp.

As it so happened, Team 4 had already found a suitable camp site... Back on the other side of the disused railway. I could barely deal with the thought of climbing back down into the gully and back out the other side again, but it was, unfortunately, what was required... And in a real search situation, where there are real people involved, you just suck it up and do as you are told, so we made our way back down into the gully... There wasn't a lot being said at that point... Until the outburst of laughter that followed me being knocked to the ground and the rest of the way down the gully by my teammate Kat, who had slipped behind me... I imagine it must have looked funny... She stopped where I was standing then I landed on my bum and slid the rest of the way down the hill with a look on my face that said "what the f@#k just happened?" It was the unexpected icebreaker we needed to get us back over the other side of the gully and back up onto the tracks.

Now, it's important for the purposes of visualisation, that you understand there are no campsites around where we were... We had to create our own... So a relatively flat piece of land was uncovered and then tramped and macheted back to a suitable platform to pitch our tents on for the evening. I found a spot in the open with a (kind of) mossy base which was relatively flat. Some team members found other spots in the open and a large portion of the crew set up camp under the canopy of some trees, complete with tarpaulin communal areas for singing and cooking. I remember getting to camp and just standing there in the rain thinking to myself "geez, I couldn't be bothered setting up my tent in the rain!"... It nearly seemed more desirable to just stand there as I was without moving.

Once I pitched my tent, I delicately worked my way inside, stripping awkwardly as I went in a vain attempt to a) not get any mud or water inside my tent, and b) not violate the eyes of my teammates... I was entirely unsuccessful on both counts. As I put on my only dry set of thermals and clothes, I began to feel more human again. The rain beat down on my tent as I lit up my little MSR pocket rocket in the vestibule of my tent and cooked up my gourmet back country meal (contradiction of terms there). As I waited for the pot to boil, I warmed my wet hands around the cooker, then I emptied the contents of the packet into the pot of water (apparently one pack feeds two people... Yeah right!) and set it aside whilst I finished setting up my mansion from the wet backpack that had exploded into the rather small space I was living in tonight.

After a hearty meal (it was supposed to be beef and pasta hot pot... hmmm), I didn't really fancy heading back out into the rain and getting my nice dry clothes all wet again... The group that had set up under the canopy were having a party of sorts... I decided to just wrap myself in my sleeping bag with some tunes in my ears and go to sleep... At 5.30pm. I woke up in the middle of the night to the cold darkness of the Mamuku, tucked my head inside my sleeping bag, pulled the drawstring shut and cocooned myself inside for the remainder of the evening, emerging in the morning to an overcast day (but at least void of rain).

We were packed up and moving not long after 8am... Everything was wet, but trying to separate the wet from the dry was impossible, so I just shoved everything in my pack to sort out later. After a short briefing on radio etiquette, our tasking for Sunday was a navigation exercise, to a point back in the bush. We chose to take the easy line straight down the railway track, then cut due south to our coordinate... How hard could it be?? Of course, we had the initial scramble, slip, use-tree-stumps-as-foot-holds descent into the gully, which we had been expecting, but once in the gully, we found ourselves bluffed out on the other side (incidentally, the bluffs weren't marked on the topo map!). It was certainly a lovely consolation, though, that we had found ourselves in this stunning gorge that ran along the foot of the bluff. We split up into two groups and explored a couple of hundred metres either way to see if there was a way up, and when we couldn't find one, made our way west along the bottom of the gorge, studying the bluff for any signs of an exit to make our way up the top.

We eventually found what looked to be a feasible route up onto the top that involved a scramble/climb/bag haul to achieve our goal. Luckily, Nick was carrying a rope and we all made our way up the route one by one, tying our bags onto the rope, then following our bags up the climb. I was second up, and Kat followed behind me. I have a reputation for packing light (it's kind of essential when you only weigh 50kgs!) but I remember picking up Kat's bag and thinking how heavy it was... Kat is only 15 years old, and she was out here roughing it in the bush with a pack heavier than mine, and wearing sneakers, not tramping boots... Not once through the whole weekend did she complain... What an absolute trooper!

Once on the top, we made our way along a ridge, vaguely following a trap line that was run through the bush, towards our delegated coordinate to report our findings. Once there, we found a small campsite and fire place (this sort of thing would be very useful information in a search), then radioed in and sat down for a cup of tea whilst we awaited further instructions. After about 40mins, we still hadn't heard anything, so decided to continue heading south, back towards the road. About ten minutes after we set off again, the radio crackled to life and we heard something along the lines of "still waiting to hear from team three". We had obviously been right on the edge of the radio range at our last stop, so had been missing all our communications! In any case, we were instructed to continue towards the road and radio for pickup.

Back at SAR Base, we awaited the return of the rest of the teams, then had a training debrief and a feed before returning home for a sleep (well, I guess that's what most people did... I cleaned all my gear then rode up to the top of Katore to watch the sunset!). It was an awesome weekend... Not only a great way to expose ourselves to the conditions of a real search, but an opportunity to work in a team with some great people and learn from each other. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with Nick, Dave and Kat for the weekend Rest assured that if you ever get lost in the bush, you have a damn good bunch of people out looking for you!!!