The Australian Missile Corporation’s team has finished among the top 10 at one of Queensland’s toughest corporate challenges.

Angie’s Mad Crusaders - Marty Watson, Dan Christie, Nick Waugh and Josephine Matthias - was in top form having trained for weeks leading into Saturday’s Canungra Combat Challenge (C3) at the Australian Army’s Kokoda Barracks. And it showed! The quartet completed the 7km Adventurer Course in a time of 1.37.08 for eighth place.

Canungra is not called the “Land Warfare Training Centre” for nothing. It’s the military base revered for preparing Diggers for the Vietnam War.

From lugging jerrycans and sandbags on muddy bush tracks, scaling cargo nets, rolling tractor tyres, crawling through pipes filled with icy cold water, and dangling on ropes, the C3 not only tested the AMC team’s endurance but also their teamwork.

And if that’s not enough the mercury at Canungra was sub-zero at start time as the whole of South-East Queensland plunged into its coldest morning in decades.

“It was minus two (degrees) here – coldest day this week,” an Army instructor said, confirming the weather report on the morning news.

The “crunch” under your feet as you walked through the grass in the carpark signalled that this year’s C3 had an extra “C”. COLD.

“We’ve been out (training) in our lunchtimes and I was doing some bootcamp stuff myself,” said Marty Watson, backing up after the 2024 event. “Though I reckon I was more scared this year because I knew what was coming. It was a different course, but still tough. The swim at the end this year was better than jumping in first last year.”

The annual event raises funds for Legacy Brisbane which supports the families of wounded and fallen war veterans.

The AMC team was joined by three other NIOA Group teams Tactical Gains Unit, Fully Semi-Athletic and The Leftovers.

Legacy Brisbane president Annabel McGuire, who was on hand as 55 teams crossed the finish line, praised NIOA Group for its support.

“It’s fantastic to have so many teams here... we know how strongly NIOA supports us and we can’t thank them enough,” she said. “It’s great to see NIOA people turn up and do this again, again and again. That type of corporate engagement really helps us help (war veterans’) families.”