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Photo by Sean Minhinnick

19A Berwick Camp 2019 - Day 1!

Sean Minhinnick —

After weeks of anticipation and excitement, the day finally arrived - we were off on camp!!

We all jumped on the bus from Tahuna at around 9:30am and we were on our way! There was a lot of nervous chatter on the bus about what the next few days held for us all, some singing and some truly awful jokes were being told!

We arrived at Berwick, unpacked our gear and had morning tea (yummy home baking), a safety de-brief and an orientation tour around the entire camp.

One of the first things we did was hit the confidence course (thankfully it didn't hit back!!!). The kids all were super keen to challenge themselves and get right around the course, completing all of the challenges along the way. Many students had set camp goals around the confidence course and I know many achieved and surpassed their goals.

We had lunch in the glorious sunshine before putting up our tents. For some this was the first time they'd pitched a tent and I was really impressed by the kids positive attitude, problem solving skills and team work!

The afternoon was spent exploring the area around the camp some more and all the kids having a go on the flying fox.

After a big day tummies were growling so we got the gas cookers out, showed the kids how to use them and then they all made their dinner (nachos) in their cooking groups. The smell was amazing and everybody was able to cook their nachos how they like them (with or without onions, tomatoes, flavouring, chilli etc.)

After dinner and washing up we all wrote in our diaries about the adventures of the day, before some games, funny campfire stories and then we headed out into the pitch black forest, late at night, to tackle the burma trail/night line.  It was a truly exciting adventure where we came across the ghosts of adults from a Tahuna camp in the 1980's who added to the excitement by saying 'hello' to us as we walked through the forest!

After showers it was time to get into tents and get some sleep for the next big day ahead of us.