The intrepid Year 8 students spent three days during Week 3 of Term 4 away from school at beautiful Camp Mornington, nestled in the hills near Waroona. After lunch on the first day, three hours passed very fast while we shared smelly shoes, solved group puzzles (using our multiprocessing skills – kicking a soccer ball, passing a basketball and listening to our screaming classmates simultaneously!) and “run the gauntlet” style dodgeball. It was surprising who made it through to score the major points; often it was not the fastest but those with an eye on the ball and the ability to jump, slide and slink their way to the goal!
A delicious dinner, dishes and a movie night saw us into bed for devotions and sleep, ready for the next day’s adventure.
Day 2 dawned bright and sunny and we spent the day doing a low ropes and mid ropes course. At the low ropes there was a variety of challenges: fitting all of our team on a moving log for the longest time, getting all of our team over two walls, moving our whole team across two planks over a distance of 20 m without touching the ground. The challenge was to support one another through an obstacle course and then to move on to a course positioned about 5m above the ground suspended by a safety harness. Credit goes to all the Year 8 students – every student had a go at the course and for the way they encouraged each other through to the end. It was the wall challenge that proved the undoing of Mr Murray, who injured his hand as he climbed over the wall, scoring a prolonged visit to hospital and some surgery. We are very glad that he is recovering well and will be back with us soon!
Our day concluded with a massive swim in the pool and a crazy quiz night finished by a Fortnite dance-off by some of the boys!
The highlight of the third day for many students was a bush walk led by the intrepid Mr Peletier, exploring the campsite and mastering the hills and valleys! The highlight for the teachers was not returning the speaker to the students on the bus and having to listen to the creative bribery attempts and woeful singing instead!
It was a fantastic time away from the usual school “stuff” and a great opportunity to get to know each other much better. All of the teachers were impressed by what a wonderful bunch of people are hiding out in Year 8!
Here are some of the Year 8 students’ thoughts about camp:
“The best thing about camp was when I went down the flying fox and got splattered in water” – Ethan Douglas
“My favourite part of camp was doing different activities with all my friends. The worst was probably when Mr Murray hurt his hand on the low ropes” – Jordan Matthews
“Camp was great; lots of fun. Over the three days I learnt a lot about the teachers and more about my friends” – Ashton de Hoop
“The best thing on camp was the new friends that were made” – Ethan Farr
