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hnpccWe went paintballing yesterday. It was a suprise birthday present for the husband of a friend, and so 7 of us trekked out to Cockatoo to shoot each other. I'm not sure how they managed to keep it a surprise during the 1 hour drive - it's not often you can say "How bout a lovely drive out into the hills on this beautiful Saturday morning?"
After getting kitted up (they lend you cammo overalls, masks and the guns) our 7 joined up with a larger group who'd been there all morning, and we formed two teams of about 20. Out of our 7 the four with shooters licenses and previous shooting experience all ended up on the same team. Not my team. Hm. :-) This had me a bit worried.
The paintballing itself was great. After I got over the adrenalin surge - which made me feel really sick - it was fun. I ran out of ammo - twice. The first game I was shot three times: in the hand (very lucky shot given I was crouching behind corrugated iron), in the leg (walked up to our fort - which turned out to be overrun. Didn't realise that until the guy shot me - bad move on his part, as the three people with me who'd hidden - we were a bit suss - then all shot him. Motto of story: don't assum someone is alone) and in the ear, which hurt like hell even through the mask. Suprisingly the red team (my team) won - which was odd given our fort was overrun three times (I was defending it) and our flag went AWOL about a third of the way into the game. Our team had no organisation, and absolutely no strategy - when the whistle to start went all the guys went charging off into the bush like Rambo, leaving myself and 3 other women to defend the fort and flag. Hm. 1 of the other women went off to find some more people to defend and didn't come back either. The blue team were much better organised - their fort had 5 people inside it and another 3 or so sniping from outside. Honestly, it was like doing a team-building exercise with my team from SPC! ("guys, shut up and discuss what we're going to do, for chrissake!")
Probably the funniest bit came at the end when I was creeping my way back to the fort (which had been overrun again - this time I'd bailed due to lack of ammo), the final whistle went and I discovered that I'd been shooting at the birthday boy (*just* missed him twice), Dean and another friend. All of whom were doing the stealthy stalking and covering each other thing from the direction I was expecting them to come - i.e. diagonally opposite to where the blue fort was. Suprisingly Dean and I didn't manage to shoot each other, although we'd been trying for the past 10 minutes, and he'd been moving around to try and get a clear shot while I was pinning Gary down. And he'd managed to shoot the other defender, dammit. With just another minute more I could have gotten at least one of them (and probably have been shot by the other two). Damn.
The second game was a bit of a turkey shoot, with both teams starting from opposite ends of a 30-odd metre pitch and running towards a flag. I started with 100 paintballs and ran out in 3 mins flat - leaving me another 3 minutes to play. Kept firing - it's hard to tell if people still have ammo in these games, you tend to assume they've just missed you if the gun's pointed your way and making a noise. Suprisingly we won again, although our winner originally managed to grab the wrong flag and promptly had 20 voices yell out "Not that one, you moron!" I think I was shot a fair bit in this game (I keep finding wierd bruises that I don't remember feeling) but I kept running and ducking anyway. Obviously I wasn't shot at close enough range for it to overcome the adrenalin - or I copped a lot of ricochets, which is also possible given I was sniping from behind some drums for quite a while.
So all in all a fun Sat. Dean's currently having trouble moving - that running in a crouch really kills your thigh muscles after a while. I just ran without the bending over, so I'm feeling fine. ;-) Apart from the bruises.
Still, all of us will happily do it again. Bruises, grazes, thigh muscles and all.
And next time, we'll have strategy. ;-)
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After getting kitted up (they lend you cammo overalls, masks and the guns) our 7 joined up with a larger group who'd been there all morning, and we formed two teams of about 20. Out of our 7 the four with shooters licenses and previous shooting experience all ended up on the same team. Not my team. Hm. :-) This had me a bit worried.
The paintballing itself was great. After I got over the adrenalin surge - which made me feel really sick - it was fun. I ran out of ammo - twice. The first game I was shot three times: in the hand (very lucky shot given I was crouching behind corrugated iron), in the leg (walked up to our fort - which turned out to be overrun. Didn't realise that until the guy shot me - bad move on his part, as the three people with me who'd hidden - we were a bit suss - then all shot him. Motto of story: don't assum someone is alone) and in the ear, which hurt like hell even through the mask. Suprisingly the red team (my team) won - which was odd given our fort was overrun three times (I was defending it) and our flag went AWOL about a third of the way into the game. Our team had no organisation, and absolutely no strategy - when the whistle to start went all the guys went charging off into the bush like Rambo, leaving myself and 3 other women to defend the fort and flag. Hm. 1 of the other women went off to find some more people to defend and didn't come back either. The blue team were much better organised - their fort had 5 people inside it and another 3 or so sniping from outside. Honestly, it was like doing a team-building exercise with my team from SPC! ("guys, shut up and discuss what we're going to do, for chrissake!")
Probably the funniest bit came at the end when I was creeping my way back to the fort (which had been overrun again - this time I'd bailed due to lack of ammo), the final whistle went and I discovered that I'd been shooting at the birthday boy (*just* missed him twice), Dean and another friend. All of whom were doing the stealthy stalking and covering each other thing from the direction I was expecting them to come - i.e. diagonally opposite to where the blue fort was. Suprisingly Dean and I didn't manage to shoot each other, although we'd been trying for the past 10 minutes, and he'd been moving around to try and get a clear shot while I was pinning Gary down. And he'd managed to shoot the other defender, dammit. With just another minute more I could have gotten at least one of them (and probably have been shot by the other two). Damn.
The second game was a bit of a turkey shoot, with both teams starting from opposite ends of a 30-odd metre pitch and running towards a flag. I started with 100 paintballs and ran out in 3 mins flat - leaving me another 3 minutes to play. Kept firing - it's hard to tell if people still have ammo in these games, you tend to assume they've just missed you if the gun's pointed your way and making a noise. Suprisingly we won again, although our winner originally managed to grab the wrong flag and promptly had 20 voices yell out "Not that one, you moron!" I think I was shot a fair bit in this game (I keep finding wierd bruises that I don't remember feeling) but I kept running and ducking anyway. Obviously I wasn't shot at close enough range for it to overcome the adrenalin - or I copped a lot of ricochets, which is also possible given I was sniping from behind some drums for quite a while.
So all in all a fun Sat. Dean's currently having trouble moving - that running in a crouch really kills your thigh muscles after a while. I just ran without the bending over, so I'm feeling fine. ;-) Apart from the bruises.
Still, all of us will happily do it again. Bruises, grazes, thigh muscles and all.
And next time, we'll have strategy. ;-)
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