Year 9 Camp

So it's a bit late but I thought you guys might still want to know what you have to look forward to for Year 9 camp. It was a lot of fun so I hope you guys enjoy it too.

Wednesday:

Camp this year for the year 9s was a 3 day camp to varying  places. The first day, Wednesday, was a hike up the Kokoda track on Mt Cootha. This day was HARD, especially for me because I prefer the water rather than the dirt. We started by being split into groups, not being with your absolute bestie didn’t even phase most girls just because you really did meet new friends. Part of this day was your team holding on to a rope and walking up the very steep hill that only had rocks and dirt to grip onto, needless to say, many people fell over. We then stopped for a break and recap. The next part of the journey involved your team building a stretcher and carrying everyone on it at least once. Once we got to the top, we did a variety of team building challenges. These were extremely fun but they aren't called challenges for nothing. After this we cooked our own BBQ lunch. This was a real test of teamwork and leadership because not everybody knew what to do, but it ended up showing a lot of girls strengths and weaknesses you wouldn’t have known otherwise. This was just one day!

Thursday:

So Thursday was the beach day! It was AMAZING. We went to Palm Beach, Currumbin. This day involved beach games, paddle boarding, a free swim and a sand maze/ball challenge. My group started with paddle boarding. I had never done it before but I can say it is so easy to pick up. Our whole team was so supportive and kind and that just made it such a fantastic experience. Our next rotation was doing the sand maze/ball thing. This involved us digging a track out of the sand for our ball to roll down. The aim was for it to roll the longest. This challenge was a great demonstration of how much you listen in science, in terms of gravity and velocity :p. My team worked really well and our ball ran along our track for 8.66 seconds, the highest in the group. My team worked so well together and the cohesion of ideas was just astounding. Everybody had a job and everybody made sure nobody was stuck or left out. The third rotation was a free swim! This was so much fun. We spent majority of our time trying to catch fish with our hands (only one girl actually caught one) and doing a handstand competition, I had no chance in winning this. Our fourth rotation was another sand challenge, I would tell you about it but I don't want to spoil it for you. I will say though that I am not a huge fan of sand and getting up close and personal with it is not my idea of fun, but other girls absolutely enjoyed it. My one HUGE tip is to wear sunscreen and a swim shirt and you have to re-apply every 30 minutes or so because I didn’t and I was red for dayssssss. 

Friday:

WOW! What a day! Friday was so much fun. We did a treasure hunt around the Brisbane CBD without a teacher. We were split into groups of 5 and then sent off into the city with a camera, clipboard and a $10 bill. The clipboard had mandatory challenges on it as well as optional challenges. The goal was to complete as many of the challenges with the most creative photos of each challenge. One of our optional challenges was to take a photo with a dragon fly. So my group found one of those big Chinese dragons and took a photo of us all jumping next to it :). There were lots of other challenges but don’t want to spoil it for you. This day was lots of fun and I made 4 new friends. I have two tips for when you do this:

1. complete all the mandatory challenges and do the optional challenges on the way to mandatory challenges
2. Try not to get lost 😂