Taking  it to the Top

Mark Haebich

Outdoor Education Coordinator

VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies (OES) Units 3&4 class

Adventure is a term that is all too often bandied about, but when did you last have an adventure? A true outdoor adventure? An experience in an outdoor environment with unknown outcomes, in challenging conditions in which your pre-existing skills and knowledge are required? Where success hinges on the commitment of a group of people and a common objective?

Victoria’s high country in the winter months is a venue which provides opportunity for real adventures to take place. The VCE Outdoor & Environmental Studies (Units 3&4) class of 2022 hit that sweet spot in the adventure experience paradigm (see the graph here), peak adventure, on the third day of this expedition. 

This was not the students first OES program on Taungarung land for which, it is important to acknowledge, sovereignty was never ceded. In 2021, the same class visited Mount Stirling between lockdowns as an autumn bushwalking experience. that event was their first time out as a class together and credit must go to their 2021 teacher, Ms Blair, who did such a wonderful job of providing outdoor learning over the challenging landscape of last year. 

I came on board as their Units 3&4 teacher for this year and could see the students had built  strong foundation of the skills and competencies required to journey in the outdoors. This was evident down at Wilsons Promontory and the Bunurong Coast for our first program of 2022; this group of young people applied skills and competencies that were matched to the demands and risks of the program and environment. 

On this trip to Mount Stirling, students were then able to step up to the increased demands and challenges of an alpine program - not only achieving moments of peak adventure, but also furthering their understanding and application of the OES course content. 

This group gels, they pick up the admin and tasks of overnight journeying, they support each other, and they are on programs to learn. Whilst camped in the snow, past exam questions were brainstormed at 9.30pm, communal meals were cooked, served, and cleaned up by students and new knowledge relating to the unique alpine environment of Mount Stirling was developed. Students then had a chance to apply this knowledge in a meeting with resort management on the final morning of the program. The representative from Buller-Stirling management, herself a passionate advocate for the Mountain Pygmy Possum, was so impressed with the students understanding of this specie’s life cycle, the threats it faces, and the protection afforded it by environmental legislation, that she wondered if she was needed at all! Students had built this knowledge the night before, after 9pm, in a joint construction exercise while I was on dish duty. 

It is also worth highlighting the groups’ capacity to build the skills required to travel and live in an alpine environment. Some group members had never been to the snow before this experience, and fittingly, we got fresh snow on Monday, about 15 cms. Only a few students had skied before and only one had cross country skied. The journey down from GGS hut, below the final push to the summit, to the Cricket Pitch where we were camping involved lots of stops, controlled stacks, and deep breaths on Tuesday afternoon. 

Click on photos to enlarge.

On Wednesday afternoon, I arrived as the last skier into the Cricket Pitch, after completing the same journey as the day before, to find that there had not been one single fall. Full control, all the way, by all group members. All this after reaching the summit and doing laps in boot deep fresh on a firm base. Peak adventure. What a fitting way to sign off on the final program of an interrupted journey through Bushwhacked in 2020 and Units 1&2 in 2021. In the final push to the line for 2022, and ultimately the VCE OES Units 3&4 exam, these students will be spurred on by the success of this program, knowing that their approach and attitude were the key ingredients to the adventure and learning that was experienced.