Fan, member and long-time pre-season camp attendee Andrew Sloman is back with his daily observations as Pre-Season Camp 2023 continues from Apollo Bay. “Slowy” first attended Camp in Arizona in 2011, and this year’s camp is his seventh and first since 2020.

Day 2 dawned bright and sunny. We’re staying at the Big 4 Caravan Park here at Apollo Bay. The amenities are great, with a big outdoor communal area set aside for us. This area includes an outdoor dining setting for the 90 members of our party, and a fire pit. For those who remember the layout of the club’s accommodation at the hub on the Gold Coast, the fire pit there was a significant part of instilling togetherness and building culture during that time. Fire pits are good omens! Breakfast was hoovered down at 6.30am, then Dimma ran through the agenda for the day and introduced camp attendee Michael Dossor to outline the history of the Tony Mangan Award and the assessment criteria for the same. For those that may not be aware, the Tony Mangan Award is presented to a player on camp who exhibits certain behaviours very similar to the Club’s values. These values were also exhibited by Tony, a long standing supporter of the Club and regular pre-season camp attendee, who tragically passed.

At 7.30am, we ventured down to the beach for the first team activity. I’m in Team Yellow and trying my best to support my fellow team members of Ben Rutten, Tom Lynch, Bigoa Nyuon, Jack Graham, Daniel Rioli, Seth Campbell and Jacob Bauer. Our challenge was to build a sandcastle to a height of approximately 1.7 metres. We were only permitted to use a set of children’s sand castle making equipment and rocks were not to be used in construction. Teamwork and a basic knowledge of structural engineering were the keys to this task. We had plenty of the former and little of the latter, but we got the job done.

We were then given a set of GPS co-ordinates which identified the destination of our next set of tasks. We worked out that it was the Aire River West Nature Reserve located approximately 30kms south west of Apollo Bay. So off we went on the team bus. Aire River Reserve is a beautiful, quiet and isolated place with a lovely, basic camp site and a boat ramp. So you could imagine the surprise of the several campers present when we descended on what was probably their favourite camping spot! Their curiosity levels were further raised when we started an orienteering challenge that involved point to point running to stations around the park, lead by compass and cryptic clues. One rather elderly couple enjoying a cup of tea beside their caravan thought this was great entertainment and decided to encourage some teams by revealing clue answers and singing the Geelong club song. All in good humour of course, but their singing did scare a nearby koala from it’s slumber. After orienteering, we were tasked with canoeing down to the river mouth beach and back.

Some interesting canoeing techniques were displayed. Daniel and Biggie possibly covered twice the required distance with a wayward, veering style that saw them bounce off the river’s banks, but they got there. After that, it was back on the buses to the Apollo Bay Golf Club for lunch.

For our team, the after lunch activity was a three-hour bike ride around the Apollo Bay town and surrounds visiting certain landmarks and scoring points as we went. A day of activities that were strong on teamwork, problem solving and physical exertion.

That evening, a group of us had dinner with the coaches and were tasked with selecting the team for Round 1 against Carlton. We were to pitch our teams to the line coaches and Dimma. This is always a daunting task, and also gives us mere mortals an appreciation of the level of knowledge and analysis that does drive the selection process. A fun but serious way to end a busy day in and around Apollo Bay.