Yr 11 Outdoor Education Camp

The Year 11 Outdoor Education Class, (of which 11 students came on camp), travelled to Little Desert National Park (Dimboola) for a 3-night self-sufficient 40km hiking trip. 

In planning for the trip, in class students worked in pairs to ensure they had a tent, suitable food, cooking equipment and other supplies that didn’t need doubling up on. Each student had their bags weighed before departure to ensure that they were carrying less than 20% of their body weight, (most bags were around 17-20kg). Even a fishing rod made the trip!

Day 1 went to plan, when we arrived, we were straight off the bus, students’ bags were properly fitted by Mr Hogg and we set off for the afternoon hiking, 15km to our first camp site. On arrival we set up tents, got our food prepared for dinner and sat around a campfire chatting, it was a beautiful evening.

The next day’s itinerary was to hike a further 13kms to our next camp site, however due to possible adverse weather conditions threatening, Mr Hogg put into place contingency plan number 1.  We hiked the 15km back to our bus and the plan was to camp at this camp site and re-assess the weather conditions on arrival.  This was another great day of hiking, it was warm and muggy but no rain. The students were so resilient, some had blisters, shoe issues, and OMG the flies and mosquitoes were EVERYWHERE, but still the students kept going, I really enjoyed their sing-along’s along the way!

After preparing our campsite on the second afternoon, we travelled into Dimboola on the bus to buy more supplies, for me more REPELLANT!  Whilst in town it was discussed with locals that the incoming weather could potentially turn nasty during the night, and we were offered to stay at the Dimboola Football Club rooms, which Mr Hogg decided would be the safest option. So, we travelled back out to the campsite and packed up all of our tents and equipment and returned to the football club rooms.  Whilst it wasn’t camping outdoors it was still a lot of fun and we were extremely grateful to the Dimboola community for taking us in.

The next day students worked together to get some ‘theory’ completed as a group as the weather was not cooperating and it was too wet to travel back out to the Little Desert.  They also gave the clubrooms a ‘makeover’ and to make it sparkly clean!

This camp was so much fun with an amazing group of students, they all showed so much resilience and adapting to changes as required.  If nothing else, I am sure they learned the importance of having contingency plans – well done Mr Hogg!

Ms Turner, camp supervising staff member