Year 9 Rubicon Camp

On Monday 3rd of June, the Year 9 class came to school with all their gear and smiles ready for the fun week ahead to Rubicon. The camp was to be from Monday to Friday. Only 7 kids went on camp with Mr Charleston and Miss Morris, making it a small but close and friendly group.

Monday, the first day of camp, is always the day of settling in and finding our rooms. After all of that, we sat down with Pagey. Pagey was the lady who was in charge and took us around to all of the activities. We then went rock climbing. The rock climbing needed a lot of teamwork and trust in each other. We then had to find all of our gear ready for hiking the next day. The equipment involved, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, hiking bags, food, water, etc.

Tuesday after breakfast we set off on the bus, to the start of the track. The hike we did was about 6km of windy and steep track. But for lunch, we stopped at the Rubicon Dam. Passing many pretty sites and nearly tripping over on many occasions. We then after a couple of hours arrived at a cabin that used to be owned by the owner of a logging mill. But now the Rubicon Outdoor School owns it. So we were able to set up camp in the yard of the house. We were also fortunate enough to have the fire running inside the house.

Wednesday morning Mr Charleston was kind enough to have the fire going again warming the house up. Everyone was so happy when walking into the house as the night and been very cold. Esther and Kyah had many layers on but were still so cold, turns out they had opened up their tent as they were hot before they fell asleep, thus freezing themselves while they slept.

Thursday morning we got our gear on and packed the trailer ro white water canoeing. When we got out on the Big River, Declan and Jay found a green egg and we turned it into a fun game. You had to try to put it in someone's boat without them knowing it was considered a bad egg, if it was in your boat it was like you had bad luck - much yelling and laughing was caused by this egg. Once everyone was in the water, one by one we went down a fast little pockets of rapids, Esther and Kyah were the first students to go, and Aiden and Beau (Rubicon Trainee) almost went in the water. After that, Jay and Declan's boat capsized trapping Declan under for a couple of seconds. But everyone was ok, and all as well.  Mr. Charleston and Boyd did well at not falling in until one of the last rapids, where Charleston fell in and floated downstream. Kyah and Esther also fell in. They were hanging on the side of the bank trying while waiting for everyone to catch up, the boat got pulled away from the bank causing Esther to fall in and rocking the boat made Kyah lose her balance and also fall in - they started laughing so much that they couldn't get back in their boat. Miss Morris had clear sailing and didn't fall in at all and was nice and dry by the end.

That night when everyone was going to bed. The girls decided to get all the mattresses out and set them up down the hallway. We would run down and then slide on the last mattress. The boys who were fast asleep were no trouble at all. So Mr Charleston came over to the girl's dorm and had a go at the mattress sliding. We even got Miss Morris to do it. Making for much laughter and great memories.

Friday was the normal boring last day of camp. The pack up and clean up and got it done pretty quickly. So we got to go rock climbing wall again and this time we even got to go abseiling. Then we all arrived back at school ready to go home and to bed, too tired to deal with anyone.

By Esther and Kyah