by Water Source
The AWA South Australia (SA) YWP’s first organised the first Amazing Race event in 2021 and is fast becoming a must-do fixture on the annual calendar.
The 2022 Amazing Race kicked off on 1 December 2022, with attendees including AWA SA members and professionals from the SA water industry. The race was planned with a focus on proximity to water and took advantage of the spectacular Adelaide Botanical Gardens and the surrounds of the River Torrens.
12 teams comprising of groups ranging from two to five members on a balmy 30 degree day promised a cracker of an event. Veterans of the 2021 event combined with newbies for this year and the competition was intense with trash-talking aplenty!
The organising committee decided to be as loyal as possible to format of the original TV show and put significant effort into chalking out a route which was challenging and fun but didn’t have the participants giving up. The idea for the event was to combine aspects of mental agility and physical fitness to form a hybrid obstacle course starting in the Botanical Gardens, racing along the River Torrens and finally concluding in North Adelaide.
The first task centered around the Gardens as a scavenger hunt with the organising committee having spent a few lovely weekends (for the event of course!) tramping across the area and picking out interesting photo and video opportunities. The participants were provided activity sheets with a list of places to be visited with photo and video proof required to show them being able to locate the spots and doing the actual activity.
To keep things interesting, each photo/video proof was allocated points based on difficulty of location and the teams had to complete a set of mandatory activities before figuring out if the time advantage was worth the additional points for the other spots. Additional bonus activities for the participants to score more points included photos/videos of a few mundane things such as ducks but also included tasks such as re-enacting the Titanic pose, playing leap-frog and hugging trees. Rest assured hilarity ensued when judging occurred at the end of the Race!
At the end of the first task, the teams were given a ‘Roadblock’ and had to choose between a ‘Brains’ or a ‘Brawn’ theme for the next stage. The teams were kindly NOT provided any details of what these streams included and were required to race to the banks of the River Torrens to find out for themselves. The ‘Brains’ theme included a series of mental agility challenges for the teams to solve while the ‘Brawn’ theme included a mix of endurance tests, work-out drills and a balance test. No surprises for guessing the more favoured theme but all the teams performed admirably across both of them.
The Final Task – Almost There!
For the final task, the teams rushed to the Adelaide Oval Parklands and were presented with a choice of lawn games. The teams chose between Finska, corn hole toss and ring toss with the goal being to score a set number of points for each game. Successful completion of these games gave the teams the direction to the destination: the Cathedral Hotel in North Adelaide. The competitors were rather exhausted from the ‘racing’ (and a fair bit of walking) in warm weather at this point and were greeted with cold beers, food platters, networking and the satisfaction of a great evening at the final location.
The winners of the 2022 SA Amazing Race were the ‘Wateroonies’ from WSP with an amazing points haul of 1,610 points. The second place was tied at 1,520 points between the ‘Hydration Station’ from WSP and ‘CORN’ from SA Water and the third place was rounded out by ‘Probably Won’t Win’ from SA Water with 1480 points. A very closely fought race indeed with the ‘Wateroonies’ being able to get their name etched on the rolling Amazing Race trophy.
The feedback from the competitors was overwhelmingly positive. Sincere gratitude and major credit to the organising committee for organising the event including Florence Choo, Adam Tomlinson, Brayden Jenke and Sushrut Kulkarni along with the volunteer support of Ben Thwaites and Bonnie Heidrich (SA YWP Committee Members). The event would also not have been possible without the fantastic support of Aurecon as the exclusive sponsor since the inception of the Amazing Race in 2021.
The Amazing Race will be back again in 2023 and the pressure is on to make it an even bigger event than before. If you are interested in participating, keep an eye out for the announcement and make sure you register!
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