Wollongong

Year 11 & 12 Fitness Excursion

It is amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind, body and soul to it. Fitness is all about lifestyle and creating a better version of yourself. When you are physically challenging yourself, you challenge your mind, and that mindset pushes you further than you ever thought you could do. 

Last Wednesday our senior VET fitness and Year 12 SLR classes travelled to Wollongong to participate in a jam-packed 3 day fitness trip. With 4 teachers and around 22 students, we were very eager to get to the beach. We had a rough start, when the bus’s battery was flat but once we got on the road the mood changed. When we got to Wollongong, our first activity was rock climbing at the amazing hangdog gym. Everyone got involved and had loads of fun testing themselves on the challenging climbs. We also got to use some of our ab-sailing skills which many of us have learnt through SLR.

After rock climbing we checked in at our accommodation and finally got to the beach where a few of us went for a swim while the rest took in the view. After a delicious pub dinner everyone went to bed for an early wakeup. We all woke up around 5:30 and walked to the beach for our beach fitness session. This started at 6.10am. A hard fitness session of runs and sprints on the sand, pushups, sit ups & lifting friends earned us a well deserved swim in the beach. This beach session was especially intense because of the sand running which is really hard on the calves and quads. The session was enjoyable, especially watching the sunrise over the water that morning.

After breakfast, we went for our first surfing lesson. Some of the group had surfed before, but most were beginners. This was a great challenge and it took a lot of persistence and concentration to achieve the goal of standing up. We were in the surf for two hours. This gave us all plenty of time to develop our skills and by the end, everyone was standing up on the waves.

Our morning had been pretty full on, but it was about to get more intense. After the surf, we went back to our accommodation, had lunch, and then set off for an 11 km hike up Mt Keira. The first two kilometers is pretty much straight uphill with a number of stairs, this left everyone's calves burning. We all needed a few stops to recharge. This gave us time to eat some snacks and rehydrate. After about 90 mins we made it to the summit to check out the great view over Wollongong. The hike was definitely worth it! Walking down was almost as hard. The lactic acid was kicking in and everyone's legs were starting to feel like jelly. When we all got back to the bus, we went straight to the beach for a swim! 

The next day saw us all head off for our second surf lesson. Many of us were still really tired from the massive day yesterday. We all surfed again for another few hours and after this started our bus trip back to Wagga. 

Thanks very much to Miss Harris, Miss Langtry, Mr McNamara and Mr Price for organising the trip and taking us on the excursion. It was great to see and participate in a variety of fitness activities, especially those that we don’t have access to here in Wagga Wagga. 

It really does make our learning much more enjoyable and engaging when we can participate in these great activities and learn through overcoming the many obstacles and challenges they provide.

Alice Gooden | Year 11 VET Fitness Student