Layk Scowen writes about his experience at the Boyle River leadership camp with Ryan Jones.

In the second week of the holidays, Ryan Jones and I (Layk Scowen) went on a 5-day leadership camp at the Boyle River Outdoor Centre. This is located in the Lewis Pass. This camp was about giving year ten students a chance to work on leadership skills, learning about the different types of leaders and the different ways of leadership. Furthermore, It was about getting us to experience different outdoor activities as well as go outside our comfort zone. These activities were also a way to develop are leadership skills.

There were people all the way from South Westland to Christchurch on the trip. All the people on the course were very cool and we all got along really well. We made so many cool new friends. The people who were running the camp looked after us very well, they kept us fed and entertained us the whole time. They also run all the activities, here are all the activities we did, problem-solving on a swamp, rock climbing, abseiling, high ropes, low ropes, day tramping, orienteering and a blindfolded night walk. We are going to talk about our favourite activity which was the abseiling, it was 33m high cliff and overlooked the Boyle river. It was quite scary because about halfway down it had an overhang, which meant we had to free-fall down the rest of the way. This way by far the coolest moment on the trip. The view and the sense of danger just made it awesome.

So, in conclusion, this camp was one of the best experiences we have had on a trip. The people, activities and the overall environment made it a really awesome time. We highly recommend doing this camp if you get the opportunity, you won’t regret it. Lastly, we would like to give a big thank you to Mr Lee who came and talked to me about going on the trip and organising us going. We would like to give another huge thank you to the Rotary Club for sponsoring us to go, it wouldn’t of been possible without you, so thank you again. Also, we want to thank the Boyle River Outdoor Centre and its staff for looking after us and running the camp.