Camp @ Valley Homestead, 2008

YO BLOG!

Woohoo! It was camp- long awaited since it's original date (and cancellation)!

Not long after 7.30am, all 45 Year 6 girls at Korowa AGS piled their luggage into the luggage compartment of a Driver bus and themselves, in passenger seats!

I sat next to Anastasia, and we took lots of stupid photos (I'll include them in my next post, when the house bandwidth would have been updated, for now it's moving at the rate of a sloth) of hallelujah lights, and ourselves.

For the first part of the journey, we watched a cheesy Cinderella movie called Ever After...

We stopped by a toilet stand, where a boy's high school stopped as well (and some old people). Most people went to the toilet, then we watched more movies (this time, Sense and Sensibility which made no Sense or Sensibility to me). I'll include photos of this 'interesting' stopover in my next post.

We later stopped again at a park with a giant playground including a spinning capsule (I have a photo), a really tall rocket (also pictured) and a cool see-saw (several pictures)! I tried taking lots of photos of Nat and Adriana (of course, unsucessfully) but I have included some that I sneaked when they didn't see :P!!!

When we finally arrived at Valley Homestead, Ovens Valley, Myrteford, I really needed to pee (too much info, I know). After a short talk, we all headed (I ran) to our cabins. I was the first to get there, and I was suprised by the cleaniness of the place!!!

That was at around lunch time, and seeing as we had all had lunch at the playground (at around 10.oo-ish) we went straight to the first activities. They included a Lateral Thinking Course and an Aerial Obstacle Course.

The Lateral thinking was quite difficult, and we spent half the time pushing other people's butts up poles and over bits of rope (that sounded very wrong).

The Aerial Obstacle Course was really cool! We were partnered up and we tried to make it through the whole course (it was MEGA) without touching the ground *it was impossible*. I was with Anna, and if we had a dollar for every time we touched the ground, we'd be richer than Bill Gates.

Dinner was Spag Bolognaise, and for dessert we had over-sugared sticky date pudding.

Unfortunately, Jenny couldn't stomach the food, and she threw up. Because of the cheesy smell, Nat (who hates cheese) got Steph C and I to spray the room with Aeroguard! :D It was really funny.

Jenny took a shower, the Nat, who informed us we didn't have hot water. Lucky for me, I had a cold shower (it was really freezing). Immediately after (I know, lucky eh?) Ms. Sterck came in and told us to move cabins 'cos we didn't have hot water.

So we moved to Cabin 12 (this was when I realised there was no cabin 13, only a 12a; I suspect because of superstitious reasons) and the rest had nice HOT showers.

Soon after, we went to the Rec Area where there was this disco ball, and a guy called Lazy Harry.

Lazy Harry sang Australian Folk songs and we danced around Mrs. Parton (in She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain-- Mrs. Parton was the mountain). It was lots of fun, and the night ended at around 10.oopm. We had a supper of Hot Chocolate and a Lemon Slice.

Did I mention the amount Anna J eats?! She ate like 3 helpings of dinner, and the portions were huge!

Anyway, it took us a long, long time to get to sleep, lots of the time trying to tell scary stories but only managing one.
According to Nat, I think we got to bed at around midnight :)

The next day was action-packed! Cabin 12 was on Breakfast Duty meaning we set the tables and cleared it up after the others left.

We headed up the 'hill'(it was more like a mountain) on foot to a camp-fire (that was lit! I have pictures) . Gary (the camp owner, who looked like he was in the army once) showed us how to light a fire, and we all took cheat fire-places to the side of a road.

We lit a practise-fire and boiled a billy can of water (I have photos of this). Then, we took a box of food and headed out to the bush to make ourselves our very own bush lunch!

The box of food included:
1 x Package of Sausages
2 x Bottle of Orange Cordial
1 x Swiss Roll
1 x Loaf of Bread (Kathryn carried this to our lunch 'site')
8 x Apples (approx.)
6 x Eggs (approx.)
1 x Carrot
8 x Potatoes (approx.)

And other bits and pieces. We cooked the Sausages by sticking them on sticks we found in the wild. We just stuck them on the fire and they cooked (they were scrumptious!)!!! We boiled the potatoes and the carrot-- all tasted great!

After the bush lunch, we did abseiling which was a disappointment... We waited for about half an hour to walk down some wall. Hmm...

That night, when we got back, I did some sketching with Anastasia, and went in the spa with Kim, Charlotte S, Pam and Jess. Dinner that night was Roast Meat (no idea what the meat was) with vegetables. Dessert was cake for Mr. Moran's Birthday (which was the first day back at school), and we went back to the cabins for showers etc.

That night, we had an Aboriginal Pastor whose name was Darren. He told us about the Aboriginal culture and Australia's indigenous land. He also played the didgeridoo and told us some 'scary' story about a red-eyed-Aboriginal Yeti. Lots of girls screamed and got all scared... Especially Anna... Ouch, my ears :P

Supper was similar to the night before's; Hot Milo + Fruit Slice. We slept earlier this time, and woke up to a breafast of cereal and spaghetti on toast.

Then we did what I found the highlight of camp! We went on the giant dual flying fox!!!

This was a Mega piece of string that ran across the valley, 220m long, 20m high!!! We were strapped to one end, went on with a partner, and could do acrobatics, for we were only strapped from the waist up!

So we went home after that, tired and a bit sore from the immense amount of activity!!

Hope you enjoyed reading about my third camp experience with my friends from school!

~Ying