by Trish Bunting

Year 5 and 6 Camp

Hannaneh has written an amazing recount of the fun, adventures the children in Ruru participated in at Living Springs.

Camp Recount

Hi, my name is Hannaneh. I am a year 5 girl at Wigram Primary School. This is a recount of how I personally felt when we went to Living Springs this year for 2 and a half days.

DAY 1: WEDNESDAY 27 OCT

When I climbed out of the car, about to walk into school, I realised what I was doing here. I felt full of nerves and excitement about what was happening, but at the same time I was thinking.

What was I doing here? Had I really made this decision myself?? I could feel millions of butterflies fluttering in my stomach trying to fly out. Finally we dragged my suitcase out of the car and into school. I threw it onto the other pile of suitcases. I took a deep breath.

All of a sudden I heard a whistle from my teachers. I knew what this meant. I gave my mum a big hug and walked inside. Then we did the normal stuff, like the roll. After that we all went outside and squeezed our bags into the bus and shuffled to the back. I looked out the window at my baby brother, tears streaming down his cheeks crying because he was not allowed on the bus. I pulled on a smile and waved.

At about 10:30am we went to Governors Bay at the bottom of the hills. We found a small area of grass in the park, we used the bathroom and ate morning tea. After that we had 2 guides. Joseph, and Tenieal meet us. Then we had to walk around the coast and up the hill. It was so HOT we had to climb the last hill into camp and it was so steep until we FINALLY got there. We ate lunch, then we had some free time in our bunks. It was just a small room with 2 bunks against 2 of the walls, and yay! Lucky me! There were 4 of us so we got our OWN BUNK EACH. Cool, right?

After that we had orienteering! I was super excited because we got to do orienteering and I hadn't done it before! It was basically just using a map and we had to find these little signs and write down the letters. My group only got through a couple. Then we had to figure out the sentence it spelt out. The sentence was: You are made to make a difference.

Then we got to do Recreational Games. We got to do things like balance bikes, mini golf, tyre swing and flying fox and most important of all, the zipline! I was so scared to do it so I refused but then when people came back and said how much fun it was. I realised I could not stay scared forever!! So I got into the line when it was my turn, I put on a helmet and a harness and pulled my legs up and to my surprise, I had so much fun! Then we got to choose when we did the other things but I liked the zipline best.

After the Recreation Games we had dinner! I don’t know what it was called but it was YUM! Then after we had ice cream for dessert. We had our first camp money auction!

Then we went to the pool for a swim and had our famous Wigrams Got Talent camp concert. After that we got about 30 minutes to change into our PJ’s, brush our teeth. ( Oh and we also got our duffy books!) Finally, Day 1 done!!

DAY 2 THURSDAY 28TH OCT

We got up at about 6AM because the other girls in our bunk house were going up and down the stairs, taking showers and making a racket. So we got up, did the morning things and had breakfast. We had a choice of 3-4 cereals and toast. Then we went and had free time.

Our first activities of the day were up at Dons Shed. We had to do 4 rotations: Bush ecology, Team initiatives, Bouldering wall, and Long Ropes. Personally, I liked long ropes, but Team initiatives were fun too!

I really liked Bush Ecology because we learnt that we can eat certain types of leaves. To clean your teeth, take away toothache and make you smell nice.To be honest I am not that much of a rock-climbing- because my hands and legs got kind of tired.

We got back to living springs at about 5:00pm and dinner was at 5:30pm so we got like, 30 minutes free time. We ate burgers and chips which were YUM! After that we had camp money action and I won 2 glow sticks and bubbles for only $55 which to be honest is a bargain then we went to the pool, and watched Sonic the Hedgehog. After that we did our night stuff and went to bed.

DAY 3 FRIDAY 29TH OCT

Today we got up, ate breakfast and tried to squeeze everything into our suitcases. I actually don’t know how we fit it in, but we managed. Then we cleaned our bunk rooms and packed up. (The mums cleaned our bathrooms ) I am very thankful for that! Then we had more time for recreational games. Then we ate lunch and then we played that animal survival game before we ate pasta and got into the bus to go home, well back to school then home. When we arrived at school I saw my mum, got out of that bus then gave her a big hug. After that I waited for my suitcase to come out of the storage in the bus and then I grabbed it and put it in the back of my car before everybody in my family went home.

So that’s my story, my personal experience of my first time in camp, my first time that I had been away from any of my family members for 3 days. I hope you enjoyed it and that it was very fun for you reading it.

By Hannaneh

THE END.