Hoadley Hide 14 - 17/4/2006

This is the general photo gallery for Hoadley. There is also a Stunt gallery, which contains a better description of the stunt and what we did.

This year Hoadley Hide was held at Wombat state forest south of the rural township of Trentham, which is just North West of Melbourne. The theme of the hike this year was "Jungle". With over two hundred and forty Venturers hiking and twenty seven stunt sites, it was destined to be a fun and rewarding long weekend for all concerned. As is Heathmont tradition we did not directly follow the set theme, instead choosing to base our stunt on the popular Disney movie 'Monsters Inc.'. This made for a very unique and exiting stunt. The majority of the Heathmont crew arrived on Thursday night, which allowed us to get the camp site completely set up and spend the rest of the night relaxing, as we decided we had plenty of time to put the stunt up in the morning. The stunt went up in the morning without any major hassles. We had plenty of time to test the equipment and make sure that everything worked as it should. 'Stunt 4' was open for business at the designated time of twelve noon on Good Friday.

We had a steady flow of Venturers throughout the weekend, most seemed enthusiastic. This gave all us a good chance to take a number of groups through the stunt and have a go at assessing them. The weather throughout the weekend was mixed, we had days of heavy rain, days of sun, and the nights were extremely cold. The catering for the weekend was done by Brett an ex Heathmont Rover and Scotty a long time friend of Heathmont. The food was excellent and there was always plenty of it.

All stunts this year were designated to close at 4.30pm each day. This meant that after 4.30 all the Rovers were free to do as they pleased, whether it be sleeping, socialising or just relaxing. Our evenings were generally spent around the campfire as crew listening to music, talking or doing nothing in particular. On Saturday night we had a formal dinner. This is another Heathmont Rovers tradition, this basically means than all rovers must wear their uniforms to dinner, we all eat at a table together and before we eat we say grace.

We took the last group of Venturers through the stunt on Sunday afternoon, we had the stunt and campsite pulled down by 10am Sunday morning. The majority of us left for Melbourne at about 10.30am, but some stayed for final parade. Next stop was the Hall as we had to unpack the trailers and air the canvas from the tents. We had fish and chips for lunch at the Hall whilst unpacking, and then everyone went home.

To finish off the great weekend we all met up on Monday night at the Dorset Gardens for dinner, but when we arrived we found the prices were far to high so we walked out and headed off to 'Smoken Joes' in Ringwood, where we all enjoyed a good meal.

The Monsters

4 eyes	Scary Tail + Horns
Are you sure there was no other colour	Friendly Monster