In lock, we learn skills for outdoor ED like rock climbing, bosh cooking, camp skills, kayaking, roping, and how to LNT (leave no trays). In term 1 we did rock climbing and roping in your single periods and kayaking in our double periods. At the start of term 2, we did a day trip to Dwellingup where we did bosh cooking tree top advancers (which is a ropes cores) and kayaking. For the rest of the term, we did bush cooking and overall camp skills.
In term 1 we had to spend a few lessons learning how to use the rock-climbing wall in a safe way. This taught us to be self-aware in the scents that we had to make sure we were safe while still having fun with our friends. When we were learning how to tie ropes in different ways I found it hard to get the hang of it, so I had to ask my friends for help with it and be resilient when I didn’t get it. In our double lessons, we went on the bus to the river to go kayaking. I found this a nice activity when it was hot but when it was cold it was less enjoyable. It took me a couple of weeks to get the skills of kayaking but when I did it was a lot easier to go in a straight line. All these skills help in our day trip.
On our day trip, we had to be at school at 6:45 and didn’t get back till 5:45. This meant that I had to be organized by making sure I had everything ready the night before. We started the day with a 2-hour drive to the place. We had bush cooking first where my group made pancakes. If we engorged the fact that there were black specks in it and put lots of maple syrup on it, they actually taste ok. After we had done this and cleaned up, we went to the treetop advancer cores. This was very out of my confit zone and hard but when I got up there, I found it very fun and probably the best part of the day. After we finished that we had our last activity of the day which was kayaking. In kayaking, we had to get pushed down a staircase into the water. There were probably 20 steps we got dragged to the middle of the stair and then they let go and you would slide down the remaining stairs. In the class, there were 2 people who fell in and I was one of them. When we kayak, we have to wear skirts, when we kayaked in term 1, we had learned that if you fall in you have to pull the pully to get yourself out, but we hadn’t used them for a bit so when I fell in it took me a couple of seconds to finger out what to do. When I got back to the surface, I was fine just a bit cold. We spent the rest of the lesson playing little games and racing each other. Then we had a 2-hour drive back to school. This camp taught me how to face my fears.
In term 2 we did bush cooking. For bush cooking, we had to bring our own food and make our own recipes in a group. This was a fun activity because we got to make and eat our own food. But we did have to be organized, so we didn’t forget any of our ingredients. This class has taught me so much and has helped improve my camping skills. I have found if fun and enjoyable to do and it had been great to do new things.
