Tier 3 A Company Group 6

Spent the entire day around the water tower. Saw the ATA group coming out of the abseiling; they had neon orange electrical tape, and I saw CUO Brogan, assumedly staffing the activity. He's from Toukley, like CUO Casey (CSM of JNCO Jan 2004 Course, RSM for 5 Battalion/Tier3).

Were given a lesson on formations and field signals by Private Sloggett. He swore every second word, and was presumably scolded for it, because he didn't swear as much later.

The water tower is 35 - 40m high. It's got 6 angled ladder climbs on the inside, and then one for about 3.5 - 4.0m straight up climb, where we had to be belayed as we climbed. It felt much like rockclimbing. Once at the top of that, there was a bridge one person wide inside the tower, over the water. And a ladder, leading to a hole in the top of the tower.
Gale force winds on the top. One of the guys already up there asked, "Is that my helmet talking to me?" "No," I replied, "That's just the wind blowing through it." "Really? Are you sure that my helmet's not trying to tell me something important?" he grinned.
Great 360degree/6400mil view. The only thing that one can't see is directly below, which is just as well. Everything is so tiny. Singleton is HUGE.
Took me probably 3-5 minutes to get over the edge. The instructor from the Adventure Training Wing called me Russela (yes, I like to think that it was the wind's fault and not the fact that I can't say my own name clearly to someone else). Nice name though.
Once off the edge, it was pretty easy. My arm got sore halfway down, the rope is quite heavy. There was maybe only 10m of true abseiling (walking down a wall), then some 20m of free drop, with a great view. It only took about 3 minutes to get to the bottom.
Group 6 was the last to abseil.

Afterwards, we headed back to Area 8 (walked to the front where the bus picked us up and most ppl fell asleep while I sang quietly to myself on the bus). We were kept awake until about 2300 because people were having O-groups (getting orders). Sloggett kept us up (because he had to) with jokes, asking us what he could do to interest us, etc. Zugai and I spoke German, or tried to. He has quite a few older siblings, and one younger brother who goes to my school.