Speckled Green

So, back from year 10 camp, and what have we done? Not much I guess. (BTW, this post is for the people who read this who didn’t go, and for my own memory)

After arriving there at 6:40amish, we loaded the coaches and made our way off to Jindabyne (although, we did have to wait a couple of minutes for Kapilan to arrive…). On the road, we settled in for the long ride ahead of us, the long ride down to a McDonald’s along the way that is. Stopping for breakfast, we continued on to Coomba where we had lunch, and a rest from the long ride. After lunch, buses 3 & 4 went to the Snowy Hydro centre where we learnt about the scheme, while buses 1 & 2, after having their turn there, went for lunch.

After that stop, we continued onto Jindabyne, where we went to our accommodation and settled in for our stay. Dinner was ok, and the night-time activity was engaging (baulko themed quiz, where the teachers won, again… and bingo). Spent the time before dinner playing Poker with Simon, Lok, Ben and Daniel, where instead of using chips, we bet punches (the winner punched each person depending on the number of bets we placed… Simon’s punches hurt, a lot).

Our cabins were ok. Sleeping with Simon, Ben, Lok and Daniel (Lamp), it was a little while before we actually got to sleep after ‘lights out’ at 10:30pm. Waking up at 5:30am(ish) the next morning, after showering and getting ready for the day of work ahead of us (and waking up my friends, which took a while), we went to breakfast in the chilly morning. After learning from last night, we left early to be at the front of the line.

Breakfast was rather good (at least in my mind, then again, I think all the breakfasts at these camps are good), and the scrambled eggs were weird (I know they were powdered, but these were just tooo edible…). After breakfast, we left for the mountains near us, to begin our day of field research.

Buses 3 & 4 started work at the bottom and moved up. We met up with some National Park Guides who lead us through our research of the alpine environment. The group I was in had Jill, who answered many of our questions (Kapilan had many…), and certainly satisfied my curiosity.

After we completed our work with our guides, we had lunch at Perisher Valley, before Buses 3 & 4 had their Blue Lake Chalet debate. Ended up with Mr Cigana being bribed into letting the development go ahead, but with heaps of compromises (really though, how are you gonna pay for a chalet to be built at 2000m with HELICOPTERS? And prefabricated chalets won’t work if you don’t build the foundations… which need heavy machinery), which ‘pleases everyone’.

After this, we made our way up to Charlotte’s pass, where we got to see a rather great view before finishing off our field research booklets, and then running down towards the Snowy River to have a glimpse of it. Heading back towards town, we stopped off in the shopping centre of Jindabyne to buy some supplies and have an afternoon tea break. That night, my cabin played poker with lollies instead of punches, and Andrew Yap & Don joined us, before we had dinner (once again, we left early). After dinner, the night-time entertainment became stuffed up as they couldn’t get the DVD player to work properly (what a shame… We couldn’t watch a movie over PG anyway), and so we went back to our cabins to prepare for our last night (and frantically check that we’d finished our booklets). Playing Big2 before we went to bed, we all finally settled down to sleep, where Lok, Daniel and I stayed up till past midnight talking about the Halo series, while Ben and Simon actually went to sleep (and I thought that Simon was going to annoy us all night like he did the night before…).

Waking up at 5:30am(ish) again, this time my friends didn’t wake up early, and it wasn’t till after my shower that I managed to get any of them awake (I gave up on Lok and Daniel, and turned on the TV and lights to try to wake them, to which Lok woke, but Daniel needed a blast of music from a phone to wake him…), and then we hurriedly got ready to leave, and rushed off to be at the head of the breakfast line. Enjoying another breakfast, we left to prepare to leave our accommodation for our long trip back to school. Enduring the bus ride, we ended up in Canberra for lunch, where we had photos and Mrs Pigram announced to us her April Fool’s joke (although nearly half the grade had guessed that it was a joke).

Lunch saw many of us lining up in front of McDonald’s again, and as the buses left, we took the last, long, 4 hour leg of our trip home. Arriving back at 4:40pm(ish), bus 3 was the last to arrive. Apparently the bus drivers had made a bet on which way was the quickest back. I wonder how that ended… Finally home, after a long, tiring, enjoyable bus ride, I… immediately started unpacking and had a shower before kicking my brother off the computer to check my emails (I only had 12 unread!! How disappointing…), and then went off and had dinner before enjoying the rest of my night (and neglecting to finish unpacking =] well, I finished before I went to bed…).

So that is my quick, undescriptive view of Yr 10 camp. Oh, and I got 9 for my booklet. Meh. I didn’t put that much effort in it (BTW, it IS out of 10, not 20+) Oh, and I need to remember who’s birthdays it was. Mr Cigana & Bikram on the Monday… and who was on the Tuesday? Oh well… Happy birthday to you peoples!