Year 7 Camp
The Great Aussie Bush Camp
We arrived at school with our bags and feeling very excited for camp. The bus ride to Tea Gardens was long but playing loud music on the bus helped the almost 4 hour drive go faster. Finally we arrived at camp and we were met with hot and sunny weather. After we got our luggage out we sat down at the logs opposite the bush, there was a massive fire pit in the middle. The instructors gave us an introduction to what we would be doing over the next three days.
After the introduction we were allocated cabin. Each cabin was like a mini house and each group had a room with beds and a bathroom. Then we were separated into groups and each day would be involved in activities including raft building, giant swing, alpine rescue, high ropes and leap of faith. All of these activities, as we would find out from our experience, would challenge us and get us to step out of our comfort zone.
As a whole group we had lunch in the dining hall and then it was over to The Lost Island where the fun began. Lost Island was a challenging obstacle course filled with water and mud. The course included small tunnels, tyres in the mud, slides, a range of other obstacles and teachers throwing buckets of mud and water on you. Teachers were drenching students with muddy water. The students eventually retaliated and started smearing mud on teachers and splashing them as payback. All students were especially targeted by Mr Howard, Mr Dunn and Miss Miletic.
On the way back to clean ourselves and prepare for dinner we had snow cones as a treat. After a messy and exhausting day and showers where we tried to get the mud out of our hair we were off to County Fair. This activity involved everyone having little stalls in groups and trying to make the most money while also spending money at other stalls. There were stalls like Ring toss, Milkshakes, Bakery, Sumo Wrestling, Face Painting, Massaging, an Arcade, Basketball and a jumping castle. The milkshakes group had the most money at the end and won the challenge!
The next day we were woken up at 6am to prepare for our trip to the sand dunes and Jimmy’s Beach. We arrived and had to make our way through the dunes to a spot where the instructors explained the Aboriginal history of the land and national park surroundings. The teachers climbed up first and made fools of themselves by falling and struggling to get to the top. While on the sand dunes we spotted a wild dingo and the instructor tried to play fetch with it. After everyone had a fun time rolling, running and playing games on the sand dunes we left to go to Jimmy’s Beach. We arrived at the beach 20 minutes later and we played some games in the water and also buried some people in the sand.
Arriving back at camp we had lunch and went off to our next activities. On the way there we had snow cones which was great as it was very hot and you could mix flavours. After our activities it was shower time and we were all buzzing with excitement for the night activity ‘Commando’.
We made our way over to the fire and the instructors explained how to play Sardines. One of the instructors went to hide somewhere in the bushes and we had to go and find him. Time passed and we couldn’t find him so we ended up going back to the fire only to find everyone there. As it grew darker it was commando time! The instructors explained what we had to do and what the teachers jobs were, then we went out in our groups. Commando went for an hour and the teachers scared everyone plenty of times while also protecting the hostages so none got taken. After Commando we all went to bed.
The next day we were up at 6am again and we all packed our bags and cleaned our cabins, we had breakfast and then it was time for our last activity. After the activity we ate lunch and then over to the souvenir shop. While waiting for the buses we played a mini game of soccer and enjoyed our last moments at the camp. We got onto our buses and headed home. Almost four hours later we arrived at our home sweet home, Cecil Hills High School!
We would like to give a special thanks to all the teachers who joined us at camp and made it even more enjoyable for us! Thank you to Mr Dunn, Ms Miletic, Mr Howard, Mr Lane, Mr Joannides, Ms Fagan and Ms Scott.
by Jessica Narvaiza and Chiara Miceli, Year 7