Busselton Senior High School Year 11 Recreation Students took to the streets on November 19, 2019 to compete in this year's Great Amazing Busso Race.
The teams were fit, the teachers were ready, and the competition was rough.
Four teams battled it out for glory - but more importantly they demonstrated key skills across a wide range of learning areas as well as incredible team spirit.
The sporty students ran considerable distances within a five kilometre radius of Busseton's town centre carrying bags filled with food, water and mysterious objects that were all part of the day's activities.
Meanwhile, their teacher supervisors cruised alongside them on bicycles.
Blue team, "The Hoonze", were Jordyn Bleach, Brooke Chitty and Ayla Maxwell. They were led by Naomi Johnstone who had no prior experience in this race. They were sparkly and ready to win.
Yellow Team, "The Boiz", Mike Gray led team members Kaleb Boyle, Patrick Weldon, Leigh Rickwood-Pitt and Mark Colyer.
Red Team, "The Gurlz", teamed together with red lipstick were Erin Fisher, Kiara Mitchell and Olivia Hewitt, joined by Madeline Abbott and Josh the Chaplain.
Green Team, "The Turbols", saved the turtles with Seren Pugh, Troy Saunders and Tarnika Sorby. Joined by their legend supervisor Elaine O'Brien.
Identified by team-coloured bandanas, capes and armbands, as well as the teachers bedazzled bikes, each group worked together to solve clues, complete challenges and overcome obstacles.
The competition began in the gym at 8:30am.
Acting principal David Gault greeted us with the famous pre-race speech before the competition began, and gave the students advice to work as a team. All teams put in a lot of effort to design their costumes and decorate the teachers' bikes.
The race was divided up into four sections with 365 points up for grabs. Penalties and bonus points were given out over the duration of the competition.
Section one involved the teams running between Busselton Senior High School, Geographe Primary School, the Geographe Leisure Centre and the Geographe Bay Yacht Club completing challenges and solving clues in order to win golf balls.
For section two, the teams had to label bones of the human body. This task sounded easy, but when put to the test, the teams began to show cracks.
Once the first two sections were completed, teams sat in Signal Park to eat their morning tea, apart from Brooke and her team who didn't eat because they were too busy sorting cards for their next task.
There were 25 cards to be sorted and used in town. These cards included tasks such as singing the national anthem in Woolworths, sending Mrs Haggarty a birthday card, finding out history of the jetty, spending money and getting receipts, using a public phone box and planking in Mitchell Park, among many other funny and challenging tasks.
Throughout the Great Amazing Busso Race each team was required to capture 16 photos of various items and points were allocated accordingly. This was the final section of the race and ultimately affected the outcome of the entire challenge.
The points were in and it showed "The Hoonze", dressed in blue and covered in glitter, as the winners of the 2019 "Great Amazing Busso Race".
Coming in at a close second was "The Boiz", followed by "The Gurlz" and in fourth place "The Turbols".
The winning team collected their prize of a subway voucher and had an amazing and fun filled day.
Of course, none of this day would be possible without the outstanding efforts of the wonderful Denise Haggarty.
The hard work and effort she put into this awesome day was appreciated by everyone and the students are very thankful for everything she has done.
The support of the town, businesses and other organisations are also crucial to the day's success and therefore Busselton Senior High School would like to sincerely thank Geographe Leisure Centre, Geographe Primary School, Terry White Chemist, Busselton Library, Woolworths, Subway, Busselton Jetty, the Busselton Yacht Club, the post office and the Reject Shop for their support in our day.
