After paddling down a river for hours upon hours, on a day that never appeared like ending, St Kilda’s pre-season camp in New Zealand then encountered a different kind of challenge.
The Saints were forced to negotiate their way onto a property to camp for the night, trading manual labour for a meal and a good night’s sleep.
“When we arrived here we had to negotiate our way onto this thousand acre property,” St Kilda ruckman Tom Hickey told saints.com.au in New Zealand.
“Farmer John was supposed to be stubborn, but he was too nice for that. In exchange for staying on his property we had to do a bit of work.
“We split up into four rotations and we had to move some sheep, we had to count some sheep, we had to chop some wood and we had to carry a log up a mountain and roll it back down.”
After an hour and a half of work, the Saints washed themselves off in the river, cooked their own dinner in a pit and sat around a camp fire before turning in for the night.
