Thursday was our overnight adventure for camp. After being prepped about some things to expect the previous night, we were super excited for our overnight!
We started the day learning how to pack our packs. Basically, you fit in your sleeping bag and a change of clothes in case it rains. All the other space in the pack is left for group gear which included: tents, tarps, cooking set, food, etc. By the end of the packing, we were carrying super heavy, uncomfortable packs.
Before we left, we had a group activity at the main site. First, we learned about a traumatic accident that occurred at OPC in 2008 where six students and their teacher died during a hike up a gorge. The story is very extensive, but involved an instructor taking her students to a place that was off limits due to the water levels at the time. Unfortunately when the water levels continued to rise and the students were unable to get out of the gorge, many of the drowned. We learned about this sad event to discuss that safety measures that are now in place to hopefully prevent something so terrible happening again.
After the talk and walk to the gorge, we used the Flying Fox which was tons of fun! We were strapped into a harness and zip lined across the river.
Once we had lunch, we were off to our overnight camp site with our huge packs. The hike was a strenuous three hours through steep steps, fallen trees, and muddy terrain. We finally arrived with about an hour until sunset and had to get to work setting up camp, finding fire wood, and cooking dinner. Everyone chipped in and we were settled and eating while the sun was setting.
This was my first experience of real camping-while I've spent a few weekends camping at Assateague Island, I'm considering this real camping for two reasons: we didn't drive to the camp site and there obviously was no indoor plumbing.
The best part of the night was our time around the camp fire. The sky was absolutely beautiful and the brightest I've ever seen (and maybe will ever see). It's amazing how many stars you can see when you're in the middle of no where in a country that has barely any people!
The night was very cold but thanks to my awesome (borrowed) high tech sleeping bag I had a pretty good night's sleep (that was not the case for many of our girls). We were up before sunrise, packing up camp and heading back to the main site.
Our time at camp ended with an awesome debrief with the group. We shared our challenges and highlights of the trip which was fun to hear. I shared my biggest challenge which was taking a back seat during the entire week. It was such a valuable experience to tag along as someone who was not the instructor and who was not allowed to offer advice or help to the group in tough situations. As someone who is usually pretty vocal, it was a true test to go with the flow of the group but I sure learned a lot. From a teaching perspective, I not only learned games to bring back to my students, but I learned the value of a challenge. It was amazing to see our group come together and support each other during tough times. I learned to keep my mouth shut because if you let them, kids can really surprise you with what they can do especially given a particularly challenging situation.
I learned so much from the camp, the instructors, and the girls in my group and am so thankful for this experience.
We said our goodbyes and I was off to Wellington which was about a four and a half hour trip down to the bottom of the north island.
The lack of population in this country is truly unbelievable especially coming from someone who has grown up and lives in the Baltimore Metropolitan area. My entire drive was down State Highway 1 which was a two lane "highway" that didn't get even close to congested until we were right outside of Wellington. On the way, I passed through a few extremely small towns, saw about a million sheep, and lots of pretty scenery. It really is refreshing being somewhere that is not very populated and overrun with people, cars, roads, stores etc.
I made it to Wellington after sunset and am excited for my weekend here!
No comments:
Post a Comment