Camp Capers!

Camp for 2017 has been and gone and we've spent this week- celebrating the highlights of camp and reflecting on the experience and growth we gained from it. The students have enjoyed writing their camp recount, recording their camp song and music video and constructing a camp diorama. Yes, it has been a busy week! 

I'm am excited to share with you our first guest blog post from LA8 student Eloise:

There’s no going back now, I thought to myself as we left school on the monstrous bus full of 44 noisy year 6’s (there were two buses, each with 44 kids). I sat next to S, Z and H sat behind us. We all talked together for the whole ride there. Once we arrived at Mornington we all gathered in the hall and ate lunch, I wasn’t that hungry so I didn’t eat much, after that we settled into our dorms, I was with K and S.

 

Our first activity was crate stacking, we met our instructor, Victoria, and she demonstrated how to put on the equipment, the harness was very uncomfortable. We started the activity, I enjoyed it a lot, as I was climbing I kept forgetting I had a harness on so I felt very unstable. Not too long after we all went on a bushwalk, there were so many march flies! 

Anyway, once we got back we all headed to the food hall (by the way the food was amazing!), we had the most delicious spaghetti Bolognese.

That night we got no sleep because of the dorm with 24 girls (whose idea was that?). That day we had baked beans on toast, which was also amazing! 

After that our group had rock climbing (which I didn’t enjoy at all), flying fox and canoeing, can I just say that canoeing was the most enjoyable activity by far! We got to paddle out into the middle of the dam, join up our canoes and switch seats with other people, we also were told to go out into the water and flip over our canoes (while we were in them), bring them to the shore and tip all the water out of them (it’s a lot harder than it sounds). 

Later that day we had indoor games in the main hall, trust me having 88 children in one room is not a great idea when it comes to noise control, anyway we played a series of entertaining games including Wattie, which consists of Mr Boylan calling people to the centre of the hall and those people whacking a ball of newspaper with a stick made of even more newspaper and attempting to score a goal.  There were many more exciting games but to name them all would take up the rest of this page (that might have been a bit of an exaggeration)!

That night we got a lot more sleep that the night before, I guess the girls in the big dorm got tired of talking! We woke up to the sound of Mr Boylan’s voice and the girls gossiping at 6:00 in the morning (I’m guessing, I had no concept of time)! I didn’t really enjoy breakfast, it was tinned spaghetti on toast. I had some fruit and some toast with melted cheese on it.

Our final activity on camp was mid-ropes course, I only did low-ropes because I fell off the 3 metre-high climbing wall straight on to my lower back, anyway I didn’t find that activity very enjoyable, it doesn’t help that there were hundreds of March flies hovering around, can I just say for such a small creature they pack a powerful bite!

Soon we headed down to the food hall to eat our last meal, hotdogs and icy poles, chips and juice, YUM! The 20 minutes before the buses departed were the most hectic time on camp by far, everybody rushing to get their bags and to make sure they get on the right bus, it was crazy! On the way back I sat next to S again, like the way there- we talked the whole time. That was my camp experience!