Upon landing in Camp Taipan at approx 0100 they opened the bar for us so we could have a couple of (free) wets.
The next day, we went out into the mountains on a quite scary helo flight through the valleys, with the alitimeter alarm pinging off every minute (it was set at 50 feet).
We were each given a set of Pusser's planks, despite one or two of the lads never having skiied before
The helo flew us up to the top of a hill, dropped us off, we skiied down (cue face plants, accompanied by much shouting and swearing, as most of us only had a Norway or two worth of skiing experience, and there were rocks aplenty under the snow 
), helo picked us up at the bottom and flew us back to the top...damn sight quicker than a ski lift!Next up, open range, with gucci guns galore - Barratt .50, Duska .50 cal machine gun, .338 LRR, 66 rockets, Remington pump action, AK47, the Kalashnikov 7.62 long sniper rifle (whatever it's called), rotary grenade launcher, Yank G3, and a couple of others I can't remember. Chilled out to the max, nice change from the normal PW range manner
Following that, their dems bloke showed us how to set up Claymores, and we all cranked one off, then made some simple C4 charges to blow bits of tank hulks.
A hoofing day rounded off by a decent home cooked scran and plenty of booze (free), accompanied by poker and much dit spinning by the SC lads.
Next day saw us nursing a few hangovers through the Pusser's SB lecture and a talk through Selection.
All in all a hoofing couple of days, and from their point of view a success I suppose - I'll definitely be putting in for a briefing course after post op leave (best get me bergen out after R&R
), and at least one of the other lads who went up was equally keen. Whether or not I can convince my body to go back into 'yomp' mode properly remains to be seen, but it definitely helps to have seen the end state first hand and have some of the myths dispelled - gives a lot of motivation. The thing which hit me most is that most of the lads I know are saying, I'll do five years, or I'll do ten years - every one of the SC lads were moaning that they only had 10 years left or 15 years left, why hadn't they done it earlier. Just goes to show it's a good way of life, if you can get there. We shall see...
