University of the Sunshine Coast: The Amazing Race

The other day we found out that a local church was sponsoring an Amazing Race around the Sunshine Coast. We knew we couldn’t pass up this opportunity, so we gathered a team consisting of myself, Holly, Etienne (a friend from France), and Kylie (a friend from Australia). We wanted to be named Team Awesome, but another team already chose that name so we improvised. We became Team Génial, which means ‘awesome’ in French. We went to the church at 9:30 this morning, met our competitors and learned the rules. There were 14 teams in all, and we were the only team of international Uni students. We got assigned a driver, named Bill, who was so nice and friendly and a lot of fun to be around. As soon as the rules were read, we were given our first clue and we took off running out the door.

Our first clue led us to Bulcock Beach in Caloundra. We jumped out of the shuttle bus and followed the flags down to the beach. We were the second team to arrive, which meant we earned 95 points (the first team earned 100 points, the second got 95, the third got 90, and so on). We were told that one team member had to dig through the sand in one of the three large marked off areas and try to find the treasure. Etienne dug through the sand searching and searching. He found two empty bottles at first, which we found out were decoy bottles. Then finally he found a bottle with a note and a puzzle in it. We then had to put the puzzle together, hoping none of the pieces would blow away. After several tries we finally arranged the pieces correctly and got it checked off by the person in charge. We then ran off back to the parking lot and took off again.

The second clue led us to Military Jetty on Golden Beach. Once we spotted the Amazing Race flags, we jumped out of the bus and ran down the beach until we saw a boat waiting with a tube attached. We were the first team to arrive here, so we earned 100 points. Etienne, Holly, and I ran down to the boat and once we were situated, we took off. Etienne didn’t waste any time and already had his bathing suit on so he was the one to jump on the tube. They took us on a crazy ride and Etienne performed like a pro and didn’t fall off so we were given our next clue.

Our next clue took us north to Kondalilla Falls. We were the first to arrive again, and the people there weren’t even finished setting up yet. So we got our 100 points and then ran in the direction they told us through the Kondalilla Falls National Park. This park is not an easy hike and we started off running. Everyone that was there was kind of looking at us strange when we ran past them on the paths. Eventually people started seeing the Amazing Race signs and realized we were part of the race. People that were hiking the park were excited to see us and cheered us on as we passed. One little boy even thought this was the real Amazing Race and asked, “Is this the proper Amazing Race?” Since we got there early we eventually caught up to the person that was supposed to be set up at the bottom of the Falls with the next clue. So we had to follow her until we got to that place and then she eventually gave us our next clue. We took off running again, but we slowed down after a while because the hike was straight up out of the park and there were a ton of stairs and it got tiring. We picked up the pace again when we saw other teams running by us in the opposite direction, we knew some teams were catching up to us. When we finally made it out of the park, they had Subway waiting for us so we grabbed some food and took off for the bus.

The next clue took us to a Hardware shop. We were once again the first team to get there and were given another 100 points. Here we had to build a bookshelf, which proved to be pretty hard. The screws and bolts were very small and hard to get tight with just your bare hands, and there were so many things we had to screw together. I cut my hands up pretty good during this and got blood all over the floor and our shelves. We tried working fast, but then realized we were doing some parts wrong. Arguments started and frustration was taking over as we realized some of the other teams were finishing before us even though we were the first to arrive. Now we understood how easy it is for arguments to start and we realized why there were so many arguments on the real TV show The Amazing Race. Finally, we finished the shelf and passed the inspection and took off running to the bus again. There were now three teams in front of us, but the good thing was that we were done the competitions and all we had to do was get to the finish line which was back at the church.

We were the fourth team to arrive at the church and were given 85 points. We then had to turn in our ‘passport’ that had all our times, signatures, and points. Now we had to wait for the other teams to arrive and see if we did good enough to win the Race. We felt pretty confident in ourselves. Once all the teams arrived, they read out the order of the teams starting with 14^th place and moving up. All the final scores were pretty close to each other. Then there were only two teams left, us and one other. We then learned that we won by 30 points! We won a $100 gift card to Big W, which is like Australia’s Wal-Mart. We were very proud of ourselves, and now we have some shopping money! We thought we didn’t stand a chance before it began since all our competitors were from the Sunshine Coast and very familiar with the area, but we prevailed! It was a very fun day even through the blood, sweat, and tears (No one in our team cried, but we learned that there were a couple of tears shed at Kondalilla Falls when people thought they went the wrong way and thought they were lost in the park. But we definitely had the blood and sweat part nailed down). The whole opportunity was a blast and so much fun. It was really cool for us to be able to explore more of the Sunshine coast also. Today was such a good day, I really enjoyed racing through the coast with some good friends. GO TEAM GÉNIAL!!!!!

**Sorry there aren’t many pictures taken during the race and competitions… we were too busy actually performing the tasks and running around like crazy!**