Batley Bulldogs Girls RLFC U15 Tour of Australia October 2015

The mission of this Trackable Bug (Kiara the Kangaroo) is to travel the world visiting Rugby Leaugue clubs, especially girls' clubs or clubs that have a girls team associated with them. Photos of the travel bug at different world locations would be great! Ultimately, I would like the travel bug to finish it's journey back where it all started - at The Batley Bulldogs rugby league stadium in Batley, West Yorkshire, England.

Batley Bulldogs Girls under 15's squad travelled to Brisbane & the Gold Coast, Australia on the 20th October 2015. 16 squad players and a 33 strong party of followers went out for 17 days. They played 4 games of rugby league against a selection of Australian girls teams. They played Ipswich Tigers up on the Sunshine Coast, a district select side. Next up was Beerwah Bulldogs near Australia Zoo & then Beenleigh. The final game of the tour was against Merrimac High School, which was a 'return' fixture. Merrimac had visited 1 year previously to take on the girls. This tour really was a huge learning curve for the Batley Girls. They were English National champions and undefeated for a year having recently won the league title with a 100% record. The standard of girls rugby league in Australia is very high - the girls lost to Ipswich 48-0, had a much closer game against Beerwah, narrowly losing 22 -12 and actually managed to beat Beenleigh 12 -4. They were welcomed with open arms at all the grounds. The hosts were truely fantastic! The Batley Bulldogs Girls played their last tour game against Merrimac High School, the same team that came over to England last year and inspired us to have a return fixture! We had a playwright accompanying us on the tour who intends to produce a play about the tour now that we've all returned. There's also a blog to look at as the tour progressed which really gets down to the grass roots of the tour and unveils an insight into how it all went while in Oz >>> www.theruck.org The girls created history on this tour as they were the 1st girls team to EVER tour Australia. It was the result of 12 months of hard fundraising to give the girls the opportunity of a lifetime.

Please move 'Kiara the Kangaroo' to as many caches as possible and help her tour the world as these inspirational young ladies will no doubt do for their county & country for years to come.