PRIDE was the only thing at stake when a group of year nine students tested its hand-built raft at Lake Pertobe yesterday afternoon.
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It really didn’t matter if the craft sank — they were drenched anyway.
Grey skies welcomed the students from the School for Student Leadership’s Gnurad Gundidj campus at Glenormiston as they designed the raft in the morning.
But heavy rain had well and truly set in by the time they were ready to set sail in the afternoon.
The students, from Lakes Entrance and Bentleigh, were taking part in the last team activity before returning home on Saturday after a nine-week residential school.
Teacher Phil Dennis said the group “had a ball”.
He said the first team activity at the start of term, which involved building a bridge at Panmure, was often a “bit of a failure” because the students had not learnt to work together. The school focuses on teaching skills such as teamwork, leadership and conflict management, with plenty of outdoor challenges thrown in along the way — including wild weather.
The Bureau of Meteorology had warned that a strong cold front was expected to cross the district overnight Sunday and it didn’t disappoint.
Warrnambool residents woke to a temperature hovering around 11 degrees at 7am (although the bureau said it felt like four degrees). By 11am it had dropped to nine degrees. The bureau was forecasting snow down to 600 metres last night as the colder air spread across the state.
A deep low pressure system passing through Bass Strait is expected to reintensify winds from the west this morning, particularly near the western and central coastal fringe.
Damaging winds around 60km/h, with peak gusts of 90-100km/h, are forecast for parts of the south-west, accompanied by heavy rain.