Year 9 Experience

An experience to remember

by Angelo von Moller, Year 9 student

The Year 9 Experience with Rustic Pathways for me was amazing, from the landscape to the service projects! Everyone was so well catered for; some people had very specific dietary requirements and Rustic Pathways always had something for them. They were very happy to talk and if something wasn’t right they found a way to make it right.

The Service Projects that we did in Kununurra were major highlights for me; just spending time with the indigenous children - playing, learning about their culture and talking. One of the boys I spoke with had only heard of snow and hadn’t seen any photos of it, so I showed him a photo of me at ski camp last year and he was captivated by how white the landscape was. One of the girls I met was Felicia, who showed Greta and I an equivalent to 21 Is It  which is a way of picking ‘who is it’ for a game of tiggy. She showed us Coconut, Coconut, Coconut Crack! However in their case, the point of it is to see who is not ‘it’. The last person is 'it'. It was fun.

The children made us bracelets out of string, which we still have. In the short amount of time we got to know them, we became friends. At the end of the long day and night, it was sad to say goodbye but happy to know that, hopefully, we gave them a day they will remember… because I know I won’t forget that experience!

One morning, a few of us went to the side of the road with the people from Kimberley Toad Busters and we filled 17 large bags of rubbish. I was surprised to see it again the next day! Later that night we went to a lake with the Kimberley Toad Busters and found 333 toads; this felt like a long night!

The long journeys travelling (8½ hours) on the bus were at times boring, but they were still fun. I remember how excited everyone was to arrive at the infinity pool at Lake Argyle in WA, however, once everyone went in, it was soooo cold! Going to the hot springs and cleaning up all the rubbish under the water while other people were relaxing was actually really fun as well. I found so much glass and many plastic bottles. I picked up as much as I could. It was also great learning about Liam’s (Rustic Pathways) culture; he shared with us about how he was in the movie Australia when he was young. It was also really fun when we were on the boat at Lake Argyle and watching people jump off the 12 metre high cliff.

The Katherine Outback Experience was amazing, there were soooo many puppies to cuddle! The Adelaide River Jumping Crocodile cruise in the NT was very interesting, seeing all the salt water crocs eating and living out their day. One of them was 150 years old!

Overall the experience was awesome! It was definitely something I will remember for a long time and I’m looking forward to the next “experience” – the ski trip coming up in August.