Moving into the Wardli’s

At the end of the gruelling bike tour, everyone was looking forward to moving into their Wardli’s. Everybody was looking forward to having a hot shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in-as opposed to a hardly-soft-1cm-thick-foam mattress.

Before we could even move into our various Wardli’s however, we had to be sorted into our groups. We had no input as to whom we would like to be with, but we were all interviewed beforehand as to who we really didn’t want to be with. Once we were put into our Wardli groups, mine consisting of myself, Carl Dorsch, Max Bevan, Jonathan Colak, John Lee, Tom Gray and Mitchell Wildman. To be honest I wasn’t as pleased as I hoped I would be with my group, but I refused to let myself get in the way of a harmonious Wardli and vowed to be as positive as I could throughout my time in there.

Moving into the Wardli’s was a complete mess. We had to get our shopping list organised, pack up our tents, ensure our trangias have all of their pieces and finally, move all of our belongings into our bedrooms. That all took a surprisingly long time: about 2 ½ hours!

After all that running about getting everything organised, we were all bussed to Minlaton where we all did our food shopping. Each person in the Wardli is constricted to a daily budget of $10 in which they must buy all of their food throughout their time. Our first shop was our biggest one, easily filling up two trolleys. As our good went through, we watched in anxious anticipation if we went over budget. Unfortunately we did g over budget, but Dale said not to worry as some of the food can be used the next week. Every Wardli did well in there shopping…however, in our second shop, one of the Wardli’s had to buy a lot because they had clearly not thoroughly planned what they needed and so had to buy from the more expensive local shop at Warooka. Thanks to our initial effective planning, we only spent $125, much less than any other Wardli’s.

Upon our return to Wambana and unpacking the food, we all discussed the long list of Wardli rules that we had to abide by in our stay-or face retribution from Dale and/or Moff, which usually meant a night in the tents.

Life in the Wardli’s isn’t as easy as I originally thought. We have to clean absolutely everything we dirty and keep it clean. Fortunately, for the majority of the time, everyone pulls their weight, so everything works. If we don’t keep our Wardli clean, then Dale, upon his daily inspections, will easily be able to subtract 10 points from your Wardli’s score. If this happens, as one of the Wardli’s found out, the entire group must sleep in a tent for the night and “regroup,” and hopefully fix everything up.

For your information, when Dale does his daily inspection, if a few things are out of place you have a chance to go back to your Wardli and fix the things you may have overlooked (unless you lose 10 points all up). If your Wardli is stunningly perfect (which no Wardli has yet to achieve) you get 10 bonus points and get a reward.