Bridge Valley Recount

 Tuesday

Last week on Tuesday at 7.15 in the morning, my whole class and the year 7's from Taiao all gathered up on the court at our school. We were getting ready for a 4-hour drive to Bridge Valley. I went to dump all my heavy luggage in the trailer and then I met up with all the other kids on the court. Miss Farr called out our names and told us what vans we were in. I was put in a really nice van with 2 of my other friends and some of the boys. We sat in the back and sang the whole way. It was really fun.

When we arrived we had to wait for ages until we got told our cabins. We all went and explored while we waited for the teachers. There was a really cool playground and a flying fox and a massive lake with 2 slides. When the teacher finally arrived we all sat on the court and got ready to sprint to our cabins. I was with 7 other girls and as soon as I got told what cabin I was in I sprinted to try to get the top bunk. I did get it but there weren't enough beds so we had to go to the next-door cabin.

We unpacked all our bags and had some food and chilled out for around an hour. After a little while we finally got to start doing activities. My first activity was called Team rescue and we had to go through obstacles with a dummy on a stretcher. In my group, who I do all the activities with, there was Calais, Meka, Taj, Mack, Max, Dion, Harlem, Kalani, Kohen, and I. Our second activity for the day was called a Burma trail. We go through the bush holding onto a rope with blindfolds on. We did one more activity for that day and that was top teams. In this one we all competed against each other in 6 different activities. My team came 2nd out of 4 teams. Once we were all ready we got dressed into our togs and went down the black waterslide if we wanted to. I went down maybe 5 or 6 times and then I went to have a shower and set up dinner.

 Once we were all showered and dressed the teachers hit the weird gong thing and we all gathered up inside. Since we were at a catholic school we had to sing weird prayer songs and that night we sang 'The Brown Cow'. Once that was all done we took turns in table groups to go up and get food. The food for that night was spaghetti and meatballs. I loved the meatballs but some of the spaghetti was overcooked and the rest was undercooked. There were also these absolutely disgusting veggies and they were actually so bad but Miss Farr threatened us that if we didn't finish our veggies we wouldn't be allowed dessert. How Rude!!

After we finished all our dinner and ate the delicious donuts we got to go out and play spotlight. In the first round, I got out straight away because Mack fell down the ditch and we all started laughing. After a couple more rounds we all got changed and ready for bed. We chilled out for about 30 mins in our cabins. After a little while, Miss Farr came in and told us that it was lights out and then we went to bed.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning we all woke up at 6.45 and started getting ready at 7.00. We all went to have breakfast but the teachers told us we still had to wait another hour. While I was waiting I got completely ready and met up with the year 6 girls. We finally got to have breakfast and Tahlia and I put on way too much sunblock. My first activity was laser tag and I absolutely sucked! I got shot more than 20 times and I shot about 2 people. I was really bad but the game was fun. We then went to have morning tea and then we moved onto low ropes. I really liked low ropes but it was kinda boring. We had a bunch of obstacles, mainly ropes, that were close to the ground. After we all went through once we got to have a race and I won, of course. Once we had finished that we went to have lunch which was burgers. It was really yum but also really filling. After we ate lunch we moved onto Team initiative. 

On team initiative, we had to work together as a team to work out how to solve puzzles and use our teamwork. There were about 5 or 6 different challenges and I participated in all of them but some people didn't. After that was all done we got to go onto our last activity for the day which was orienteering. I sorta liked it because I liked the clues that were given and trying to hunt for the sign things but I really needed to pee and some signs weren't in the place they said they were in.

After orienteering, I don't really remember exactly what happened but I'm pretty sure we had free time for a while and then we got to go onto the big blue slides. The slide was really fun on the way down and then when you hit the water it was sooooo freezing. I only went down 3 or 4 times because I'm a chicken but I went with my friend down and we got pushed so we went super fast and it felt like we were gonna fly off the edge. Once I was all finished on the slide I sprinted over to the nice warm pool and stayed in there for about 10 minutes. After I got bored from the pool I went back to the cabin and had a nice longggg shower. After a while, everyone else started getting out and we finally got to eat dinner.

Dinner that night was probably a 6 out of 10. We had Butter Chicken but instead of cut-up chicken we had drumsticks and I didn't like that. We then had dessert which was chocolate moose inside of a meringue and that was delicious. After we had cleared up, we got ready for our next night game which was the Burma trail in the dark. The first time everyone went through and no one got scared but the second time you got to choose whether you did it or not and I chose to do it. People were jumping out and scaring us and I got so scared, I fell down the bank a bunch of times.

We all walked back to our cabins and went to sleep. Calais, Grace, and I couldn't sleep so typical Calais started singing and Grace and I joined in.

Thursday

On Thursday morning we all woke up at 7.00. We were absolutely shattered. We got dressed and ate breakfast. At about 9.30 we started on our first activity which was abseiling. On the way up we had to climb through a little maze to try and get up. Once we were up I was really excited. I went 2nd and when you went down you had to lean all the way back and it was a little scary but really fun. I got to go twice but it was only Taj, Mack and I that got to go twice. We went back and had morning tea then we moved onto kayaking. Kayaking was really fun and I was a pro. I won all the races and fell out of my kayak near the end. We went to have lunch which was really yum hot dogs and wedges and cheese. We then moved onto archery and I wasn't very good but Taj and I both shot bullseyes so yeah I guess I'm a pro at that as well. After we were all finished and I got all the wet grass off me that Dion spilled on me, we went to fire and damper. I honestly loved the Damper because I coated it in cinnamon sugar. We put bread dough on a stick and then heated it up over a fire. Mine was definitely the best and even our adult leaders said that.

Once we had finished all the activities we had afternoon tea and went on the black waterslide again, but this time we put dishwashing liquid on it. We had showers and went to eat dinner which was delicious nachos with spring rolls and for dessert we had lamingtons with chocolate and cream on it. We cleaned up and everyone sat down. 1 person from each group got to go up and grab a subject out of a hat for the concert. My group got lip-syncing. I was really happy because that's what I wanted. The other subjects were comedy, little red riding hood play, and dancing. We went to the cabins with our groups and we practiced what we were gonna do. We took ages to decide but finally, we chose to do Barbie Girl. We each got 10 minutes on the stage to practice separately and ours was really weird. We finally got to go on stage in front of everyone and we went last. My favorite one was probably group 4's or my one. It was really embarrassing on stage but really funny and I liked it. We finally finished and we all went to bed. That night was really funny because, in the night around 10 something, the teachers all came in with face masks on and started trying to scare us. It was really funny and I got really scared.

That night it was soooo hard to get to sleep so Calais, Grace, and I just talked for a little while and then sang quietly which was funny. After a little while we finally got to sleep.

Friday

On Friday we all slept in till 7.30 cause we were absolutely shattered. Miss Farr barged in our door and yelled at us to get up. We all slowly woke up and started cramming everything in our bag. I was really excited because Miss Farr told us we were doing an iron man a couple of days ago but I didn't know what it was. We all went to have breakfast and I was so sad that we had to leave. We had to clean everything perfectly and put our stuff in the van and finally, the teachers hit the gong. We all gathered up on the field but I missed whatever they were saying because I had to fill out a form about the overall experience. When I got there everyone was playing a big game called Get Fresh which made no sense at first. I asked the teachers if this was the whole iron man thing but they said we weren't doing the iron man because its a big marathon thing and they don't want us to get wet so we just played get fresh instead. 

How you play is there are two teams on either side of the field and everyone has to try tag the opposite team but you have to be fresher which means you have to be behind your line for longer and try not to stay on the field. So when you go on the field you're fresher but if someone comes on after you it means they're fresher because they're newer to the field. Well if you both tag each other than the fresher person brings you to jail. When you're in jail you form a massive line and when you get to jail you have to go to the root of the line. If you want to get out of jail one of your teammates has to bring you back and they can only bring one person back at a time. 

That game was really fun even though it was confusing at first. Finally, it was time to go and I was gutted. I didn't want to leave because Bridge Valley was definitely the best camp so far. I really wanted to stay for another week and so did probably most of the class. We all got loaded up into our vans and drove back home. I was trying to sleep but other people were being so annoying and loud. We finally got home and I realized after a while that my Mum had forgotten about me so Miss Farr had to drive me home. Overall that was my funnest camp and definitely search it up and go there because I loved it.