I keep seeing more and more search queries that bring people to my blog, that relate to what happens at – and after – Kapooka, which is where basic training is conducted for the Australian Army.
This is my fifth post on Kapooka itself, plus I have one about the RAINF IET course at Singleton. You can read my previous posts here:
But the latest search terms I’ve seen are getting a little more specific. One asks when the “Challenge” occurs. The Challenge is the final field phase of training and is designed to encompass everything you have learned at Kapooka that relates to fieldcraft.
Keep in mind I did this 22 years ago, so things might have changed slightly, although probably not that much. From memory, the Challenge was something like 15km of full-on action – but it may have been longer. And today? Who knows.
It all started with a 5km forced march in full pack, known as Marching Order. You’re probably carrying around 30kg all-up, comprising of your weapon, webbing and pack. Once you finish the 5km, you drop your packs and continue with your weapon and webbing, known as Patrol Order.
From there you go through a series of events, all of which you receive plenty of training for. There’s a section attack, stretcher carry of a wounded soldier, obstacle course (I think the obs course is about 800m long from memory) followed by a dam crossing (bloody FREEZING in winter!), bayonet assault course, and another 6km forced march that ends at the range.
From there, you get a short break to clean your weapons and maybe get a quick drink – and if you’re lucky, a bacon and egg roll – and then you move into the Falling Plate shoot. The shoot is a section, team challenge. There are ten small, square, white plates at 100m and as a section you have to shoot them all down. You lose points for every round you shoot, so there’s a bit of tactics involved. Your section commander will tell you the best way for your section to finish with the least amount of shots fired.
And after that, you’re done. It takes the better part of the day, and pretty much the entire Challenge is recorded and you can buy a copy for prosterity. It’s fun to go back and have a look a few years later and see how you went.
The Challenge occurs only about a week before the end of training. Once it’s done, all that’s left (and again, I’m only going by my memory of what happened 20+ years ago) is your final room/building inspection and then your march-out parade which takes a few days of practice to get right. Then it’s BBQ and beers with your family and it’s all over.
Another search term I’ve seen relates to the bathrooms, but I’ll give you a rundown of the accommodation at Kapooka. Recruits are accommodated with their Platoon – the group of people you’ll do your training with. These days, as far as I know, there are males and females in the same platoons – although when I went through, the females had there own area.
The rooms hold four, but in two groups of two. As you enter the room, there is a partition that divides the rooms into two. So there are two of you on the left and two on the right. You get a single bed (no bunks), a small desk and a wardrobe. Your bed is probably about 2m away from your room mate.
Morning routine is pretty strict. You get called into the hallway where they call the role and make sure everyone’s still there. In my day, you had to come out with a sheet over your shoulder to prove you slept in your bed. Once role call is done, you have 15 minutes to make your beds, shave and dress. And trust me, by the end of training, you’ll get all that done with time to spare.
It takes two people to make a bed at Kapooka. It’s true that your CPL will check you have made your bed properly by dropping a pen on it and making sure it bounces. Also, all of your folds need to be perfect and at the exact measurements. You’ll know if you get it wrong, because when you get back from breakfast, you’ll think you walked into the wrong room. Who lives here, and just leaves their sheets on the floor and their pillow in the hallway? Oh, crap!
The bathrooms have two lines of sinks for shaving and making yourself pretty. You get time AFTER breakfast to brush your teeth. One one side of the bathroom is toilets and on the other is showers. The showers are what I would call “semi closed” – individual shower cubicles but without a door. But with integrated Platoons now, this could all be different.
So you do get a little privacy while in the shower, but not a whole lot. Generally, you shower at night, because that’s when you get the most time to yourself. Training used to finish around 2100h (that’s 9pm) and you had an hour to shower, clean your weapon (again), maybe write a letter home and get into bed. Lights out strictly at 2200h.
There are times when it seems you just don’t get enough time to get things done. I remember times coming back from PT when we were only given 10 minutes for the entire Platoon to get showered and back into uniform. Privacy in the showers goes out the window there, because if you’re in there for more than about 2 minutes, the next guy is standing there naked yelling at you to hurry up!
So I hope that answers the latest round of queries. Remember to leave me a comment if you have a question you can’t find an answer to. And I’ll remind you that your comment isn’t immediately made public, so if your question is a little embarassing, then you can leave me an e-mail address and I can reply to you personally. If not, I can just do another post like this one, so nobody will know who asked the question.
Grumpy Aussie 