Queensland Camp

By Evie Scoble

The week of the 22nd to the 27th October, forty-five year 9 and 10 students were lucky enough to be able to take a six day trip to the Gold Coast, where they visited some of the best theme parks, shopping at Pacific Fair, went to beaches for swimming and surfing and just enjoy the overall Gold Coast experience.

Sunday the 22nd marked the first day of the trip. We all made an early departure from Rochester at 5:00am before picking up more people in Elmore and Toolleen and then traveling on to Melbourne where we took a flight straight to the Gold Coast. Once at our destination, our first stop was at a beach in Burleigh Heads where we all brought lunch and went for a swim before heading to Ashmore Palms Holiday Village. We spent the remainder of the day exploring, swimming in the pool, and going on a quick walk to a small Woolworths for some snacks before heading off to bed for an early night.

The first two full days each bought a day out to the theme parks, Wet‘n’Wild and Movie World, where everyone had the opportunity to explore the parks for themselves and do whatever rides they wanted too. Wet’n’Wild featured a wide range of water based activities such as the Giant Wave Pool, the Tornado, Calypso Beach, the Constrictor and the Kamikaze. Movie World felt like stepping into an actual movie with all their themed roller coasters and rides like the Joker Hypocoaster, the Superman Escape, the Batwing Spaceshot, the Green Lantern Coaster and the Wild West Falls as well as their big character parade that concluded the day.

We started Wednesday off by going to Broadbeach where we spent the morning having a swim and a surf. Changing at the beach and made our way on foot to the Pacific Fair Shopping Centre, Queensland's biggest shopping centre that holds around 400 stores. We spent the majority of the afternoon exploring what Pacific Fair had to offer before bussing back to Ashmore Palms with many shopping bags in hand, high spirits and low bank accounts.

Thursday, our last full day in Queensland paradise, was well spent at Dreamworld. Dreamworld had a lot of options of fun including two main zoo areas that held tigers, crocodiles and more, many thrill rides like the Claw, the Motocoaster, the Giant Drop, Kenny’s Forest Flyer and the Steel Taipan, as well as some more relaxed entertainment like driving the vintage cars, going on the little train and exploring the shops. We made our way back to Ashmore Palms to enjoy our last night and do some tidying up ready for the next morning.

And with that the trip came to an end. On Friday we were all mostly exhausted but also filled up with fun. We made our way back to the Gold Coast airport and boarded our exciting, turbulence filled flight back to Melbourne. We then travelled back home on the bus, but not before stopping along the way to have a quick lunch stop at Maccas and KFC. We made it back to Rochester, missing Queensland already, but also happy to be back and to have so many amazing memories of the awesome experience.

Thank you to everyone who made this trip a reality for us, but an extra big thanks to the teachers who came to the camp for making it so enjoyable but also keeping us out of trouble.

Scholarship Application

Submission by 8th December, 2023