Year 7 Camp

I woke up early and jumped out of my bed, I felt this amazing bolt of excitement inside me like a car fast as a cheetah. As I got into the car with my grey heavy suitcase and my pink hot bag, we arrived at the town hall with everyone in a thick bubble jacket and waited for the bus to come and pick us up. When we got on the bus, we took a lot of pictures and saw the sandy beach and blue ocean as we crossed the iron bridge.. We read our camp booklet with our camp activities on the bus. “We’re here! We're here!“ yelled the girls as we arrived at the camp, “settle down, please!” yelled the teachers on the bus, no child on the bus could settle down, we were all excited to go camping.

After we got off the bus from our one hour trip, we took a little snack before the other buses arrived from their long trips. After a short time, we got into our groups and walked to the busy streets and suburbs that lead us to a place called Clip n Climb an indoor climbing area. Before we climbed we needed to wear a harness to keep us safe when we climbed up and down. Everyone’s favourite one was the “ Walk up to heaven” a different set of poles that you walk up to the top, we also liked Mr Cherrington climbing up to every single rock wall. My favourite one was the sky scraper, a rock wall of squares and the ladder, it was fun for everyone to go on.

Afterwards, we went to a cafe and got freezing ice creams, cold drinks, and sweet candies. My friend Vanessa and I bought Freddo frog chocolates and talked about our climbing experiences. After we watched the other group climbing we walked back to the island camp, and had access to our dorms, cabins and log cabins, My room was in a cabin with 6 people in our class next to the teacher’s room with Manya, Karyna, Hansani, Valentina, and Aiswarya. I got the bed at the top of a bunk bed in the cabin with my best friend Aiswarya.

Soon after that, we went to do some free activities such as the trampoline, flying fox, giant swing, pool table, table tennis and swimming in the pool, being supervised by Mrs Roberts who was an amazing sports teacher.

While we found our seats in the dining room with Vanessa, Crystal, Jennifer, Eliza, and Aiswarya we all took our food for dinner with a juicy, tenderly chicken, salty fried chips, hot tasty gravy, healthy looking salad and cold sweet ice cream for dessert for celebrating Amber, my classmates birthday.

Meanwhile, after we finished our food, we played inside games in the gymnasium like swimming like the duck, soccer goal, frisbee, beanbag toss, balance the bean bag, golden child and three-legged race. My favourite one was going to the three-legged race, I was partners with Hansani from my class.

The next day we played inside games in the gymnasium with games like archery, low ropes and the abseiling wall, with the other groups doing the flying fox and giant swing, trampoline, and craft and arts. Everyone’s favourite one was the low ropes where we wore a harness and the group had to help you stack up plastic boxes and the other one that everyone’s favourite was the abseiling wall, a rock climbing wall that moves very fast.

Soon we went to the beach where the red stone rock pools were and the cold splashy sea was buzzing with its dormant strength, as the waves were crawling gently on the shore. It started to creep steadily towards us and heard everyone splashing at each other, girls squealing at the beach and making soft, glamorous sandcastles with the ocean summer breeze air as the waves were crashing and best friends played together.

As everyone got into the water we saw a crab in the sea clicking its sharp tiny claws, then we all looked for seashells, inside the seashells were iridescent, shining with the colours of the ocean. The other girls played volleyball with their own imaginary court.

When it was about to go back to the camp we all had soft sand on our feet which made them itchy.

After going back to camp we all had lunch with the made-up sandwiches we just made with sweet sauces and seasoning. It was very delicious, we had also had chocolate cake slices with smarties and cheesecake with berries for dessert, served with a special sauce. While we were waiting in the meeting room in our Pj’s comfy pillows and snuggly blankets, we all watched the choir singing Million Dreams and Savesta before the Killester Idol.

When the Killester idol started the first group were called Killester hype house, who did a tik tok mashup dance it was fun to watch, next was Ayesha and Roupneenet who performed magic tricks, which everyone loved. The best trick was when the 2nd one the assistant was Cathy and she was splashed with water. The next show was a band singing “never enough” and the other performances were playing the piano and the others doing their performances like Judi singing “ I can’t stop falling in love. Afterwards, a minute later, we had a sing-along of the queen and the shallow and a dance party with all the party music we wanted.

It was very fun and funny to watch the teachers dancing on the spot with the other students, soon after that, we saw the result of who won for the Killester idol. In third place is Joan, who played the piano, in second place is Brooke the duck who sang a song “someone you loved ”, and in the first place is Lily, Kathy, Annabella,who sang “Never enough.” For the last day of our camp of 2020, we all headed to the dining room to have breakfast with a bowl of crunchy cereal, sticky jams, and hardened Weetbix. When we were at our table we all watched the colorful wheels of cereal float around in the bowl full of milk with hot toasted toast with smooth sweet butter.

As soon as we finished our food, we all did our two very last activities before we traveled back to school, for my group we rode bikes around the oval where everyone was on the trampoline, swimming pools and flying on the flying fox. In the meantime, we all went to do our last activity. For my group, we all went on the giant swing, it was my turn when I was pulled up to the top by everyone pulling the rope,. I wore a harness, a helmet and protective glasses.

I pulled the black rope underneath the rope I was holding and soon BOOM! I fell down, swinging back and forth, like dropping on a roller coaster as everything inside my body was just sinking all at once. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t make a sound.

In a short while, we all went to the meeting room where we got ribbons and cards and had our liturgy about International Women's Day. After the liturgy, we all sang a song called “ You can count on me” by Bruno Mars. A minute later, we all opened our cards that we received and swapped it around next to one another then we picked one and passed it on. My card was made by Aathmika who talked about a penguin called Penny with her big tough penguin dad and her little baby sister in an egg.

It had also said “ I am here cause I want to wish you a great year a Killester to make your dreams come true” and the message made me cry as I read the words

I also liked how it said on the last note “ I better go now. I’m so hot here and my little sister is about to hatch, I'm going to the north pole.” it made me laugh a lot. We went back to our dorms, cabins and log cabins to pack all our stuff and head to the buses waiting for us.

We all went to take some class pictures before we left group by group, my group was first up to take the picture of St Maria Goretti for memories of my Year 7 camp. We all headed to the buses and put our heavy luggage and bags inside with us and drove back to school. I’m so glad the camp was even more exciting and fun than I even imagined for everyone. The Year 7 camp was my first camp.

Sofia Alzona

Year 7 St Maria Goretti

Prayer