At the start Term 2, we where fortunate enough to go on a day trip down to Dwellingup for my elective lock. Down in Dwellingup we did three activities, kayaking, bush cooking, and tree top climbing.

Kayaking:

Our first activity of the day was kayaking. My goal down in Dwellingup was to make sure I didn’t fall in, especially when entering the water. The capability I used in during kayaking was being self-aware. This made sure I knew my surroundings are the people near me, so that I didn’t collide with them while on my kayak. What I would like to improve on more, is that organisation of getting into the water, since our bus was already late, we lost lots of time to be down into the water. So making sure we are organised by setting up the kayaks quickly, can ensure we have more time to kayak.

Bush Cooking:

Our second activity of the day was bush cooking. Our goal was to ensure the fire stayed alight, and to make a tasty meal. The capability I focused on during this activity was effective communication. Talking and discussing with my group, made sure everyone knew what food and equipment to bring down to Dwellingup. Communicating within our group also ensured that everyone has a task to do while cooking so we could be as efficient as possible. For next time, I think I would like to cook more challenging foods to test out the different styles of cooking on a bush fire.

Treetop Climbing:

Our final activity down in Dwellingup was down at Tree Top Adventures. My goal was to try every single course in the time period we had, to try test my climbing abilities. The main capability used in this activity was resilience, especially on the harder courses. Some of the higher courses we quite challenging to get through, so I had to be resilient and keep trying until I got to the end. However the thing I would do for next time, is try to get through the courses quicker, or to try the hardest course even if I haven’t done the other ones, since I had run out of time to attempt the hardest course which I would have liked to try to push myself.

Leave No Trace:

Leave no trace is a policy which contains 7 policies to follow to have a minimal impact for anyone visiting the outdoors. The 7 policies are,

• Plan ahead and prepare
• Travel & Camp on Durable Surfaces
• Dispose of Waste Properly
• Leave what you find
• Minimize Campfire Impacts
• Respect Wildlife
• Be considerate of others

On our trip to Dwellingup we used lots of these principles to leave the campsite in a better condition than when we had arrived there. An example of our group using leave no trace, is when we planed ahead and prepared for our meal, this ensured we have no rubbish or extra items we didn’t need to throw out afterwards. During the bush-cooking we also minimized our campfire impacts by making sure we didn’t use more wood than needed, and by making sure we didn’t leave the fire going on for too long. After we had finished our lunch, everyone down in Dwellingup went around and picked up rubbish throughout the bushes and trees. This is us applying the policy to dispose waste properly. However this wasn’t our rubbish we made sure we left the campsite in a good condition, to effectively help the wildlife and to help the next people at the campsite.