School leaders attend the 2020 Young Leaders Conference in Sydney

On Sunday 1st March 2020, the Yanco Public School captains (Asha Dunn and Tate Tabain) boarded a plane to Sydney to attend the National Young Leaders Day conference. Asha and Tate were incredibly excited to attend this year as they had heard stories of how amazing the trip to Sydney is and how impressive the speakers are at the conference. When we arrived in Sydney, we jumped into a taxi and drove to our apartment in Darling Harbour. Asha and Tate were shocked to see so many cars and laughed lots at the bad driving and horn beeping! When we arrived at our apartment, we quickly got changed into our swimmers, went to have lunch (KFC!) and then jumped into another taxi to head to Raging Waters Sydney! Raging Waters is a HUGE water park with massive waterslides, a giant wave pool and lots more. We didn’t know what to do first, so we headed to the wave pool and had a look at all the slides. The wave pool was a lot of fun and was just like the beach with lots of waves pushing you back towards shore. When we finished at the wave pool, we found the biggest slide we could find and lined up. This slide was called Tornado Wave and it was terrifying! You sit in a 4-person inflatable boat and start a gentle drift past the people waiting in line before dropping into a fast spiral where you spin out of control. This was the easy part though. After the spiral you drop quickly down a tube and then fly up a vertical wall before dropping back down. We were all screaming but it was so much fun. After the Tornado Wave, we explored the park a bit more and went on lots of great rides and revisited the wave pool. Before we went home, Asha went on the scariest ride there called the 360 Rush. For this ride, you stand in a tube and a door closes around you and then a countdown begins. After 3 seconds, the floor under you drops and you fall 6-stories down a tube before flying back up and around a bend. However, Asha was too little to get around the bend and got stuck in the tube where they had to rescue her! The lady that went after her also got stuck. It was scary but very funny. We had so much fun at Raging Waters and would LOVE to go there again one day. That night we had dinner at Darling Harbour and ate ice-cream by the water before heading home for an early night. We were exhausted from all the incredible rides that we could barely stay awake. The next day we attended the National Young Leaders Day Conference where we met lots of incredibly famous people who told us their story of becoming successful while also dancing to great music from DJ Raff. The first speaker was Erin Molan who is a TV sports presenter who told us that it is important to be persistent, difficult things build resilience, even adults deal with bullying and good leaders often are not in charge. After Erin was Rove McManus who told us all about his transition from TV to becoming an author. Bianca Chatfield (Australian netballer) was next and she taught us lots about surrounding ourselves with positive people, making good choices and not quitting when things get tough! The last speaker for the day was John Coutis. John has been at the Young Leaders day before and he is incredibly inspirational! He shared his story of how he was picked on a lot as a kid due to his disability but how he never let that upset him or bring him down. We learned so much from the speakers and had a great day! Our trip to Sydney was incredible and we are so thankful that we were able to attend the National Young Leaders Day Conference 2020.