Aussie Pete Goes From WTH Blogger To WTH Roving Reporter - AsiaOne

It's taken me almost a week to get around to writing this article, so apologies to those who have been waiting so patiently for it. I won't go in to the gory details, so just let me say (to use an Australian colloquialism), I've been down with a 'crook guts' - after a couple of days at the hospital, all is well now and I'm definitely back on the mend.

Last Saturday, the seemingly mismatched team of which I'd previously spoken - the crazy ang moh, the photographer, the traveller and the cam wh*re - managed to come together like clockwork in the AsiaOne Adventure Race.

Although we din't win the overall race, we certainly managed to show that we are more than just a bunch of pretty faces... the OMY Star Blogger team worked our way through a half a dozen different challenges that tested our brain power, strength and endurance.

Jerome became our 'human GPS', so much so that we did not once need to programme a location into any device. Yet, we did not lose our way at all. His knowledge of Singapore, obscure locations and back streets is quite remarkable!

Having said that, there has been much discussion across social media about what is being referred to as the now infamous 'Great Fall at Jurong Bird Park'... in short, Jerome took quite the tumble whilst heading to get our picture taken at the Flamingo Pool. Below, courtesy of OMY.SG, is one of the vodcasts of the event, and at around 3:05, you will see and hear a blow-by-blow account of the incident.

The interview with the team was conducted by yours truly, and I'm thinking that maybe I've found myself a 'new calling' as a roving reporter. The challenge may be to find more 'What The Hell' type of events and activities for which to report.

(In all seriousness, at the time of the 'Great Fall', I was very worried for Jerome, as he did tumble quite seriously and did some significant damage to both himself and his expensive camera... and perhaps his pride - thank goodness that he has now recovered well - Jerome and I are very good buddies and it hurt me personally to see him go down like that).

Of course, kudos to the rest of the team for everyone's unique set of abilities... Clara, who managed to reduce a potentially lengthy exercise of Origami down to almost a matter of seconds - what I'm guessing would've taken the average 'non-paper folder' at least 30-minutes to complete, Clara's hands moved at the speed of light and required no guidance nor instructions to fold a paper crane identical in structure to the guidelines and the step-by-step pictorial.

Then there was Eunice - successfully climbing a rock wall with shoes that had become almost like ice skates from the puddles of water outside. As the other rock climber on the team, I can tell you that under the circumstances, this was no 'walk in the park' challenge.

My highlight of the day personally, was speeding around the Go-Kart track in the rain, with the 'pedal to the metal' - much to the dismay (and perhaps even anger) of the staff, I held nothing back as I manoeuvred my way around sharp corners and S-bends... the drifting that I was hoping to experience was an absolute rush... and the couple of times that I put the kart into a 360-degree spin, although costing me some time on the fastest lap measure, succeeded in pushing the adrenalin up to incredible heights.

After getting hosed down to try and remove some of the stubborn mud off my clothes, it took me a good half hour to stop the shaking in my hands brought on by the adrenalin rush...

Finally, a big thank you to Janet from OMY, who travelled with us as an observer (and photographer) was quite tolerant of our antics, and even joined in the group singing as we travelled from location to location... perhaps it's saying something about our age, but we were listening to and singing some classic 'oldies' - the girls did get a little worried when I began crooning 'Summer Lovin' from Grease to Jerome on the drive out to Jerome - I feel blessed that the video cameras were not rolling at that point of the day!!

So what if I get invited to participate in the AsiaOne Adventure Race 4?? - I will be lining up with bells on!! It was such a fun-filled day, and one that I will be unlikely to forget any time soon - I recommend to anybody with a license and is over the age of 25 to apply in 2012... especially any serious 'What The Hell' Bloggers - I suspect that each member of our entire team this year had a few WTH moments of their own throughout the day.

For the article and all of the other Vodcasts from the day - click here!!

For more pictures, courtesy of OMY.SG - click here!!

Also - a recent article on the AsiaOne website - click here!!