Camp is over :(

Camp was literally one of the best experiences of my life, I became more confident, got to know so many more people and had so much fun. It all started on Monday when...

I threw my bags into the car, I had butterflies, no more like eagles flying around in my stomach. As we drove down the driveway gave an excited scream inside my head I couldn't actually believe that I was on year 8 camp!

 The drive didn't feel long at all as we made stops at the Levin adventure park and the Waiouru  army museum. Once we got to camp my group hastily prepared our dinner of nachos and after a quick presentation by our instructor Rhys (our group called him Reeces Pieces) we headed off to bed.

The next morning I was woken up at 6:15 as I was on breakfast duty, peeling potatoes at 6:30 in the morning isn't easy. But I was so excited to hear that our group was going caving! Once we got down to the caves it was basically a lot of slippery rocks until we got to the first squeeze-the letterbox. It went trying to climb over a big rock with only a small gap between the ceiling and the rock. Some other squeezes that we went through were the toaster, the panini press, winnie the poohs crack, the birth canal and the corkscrew. The most difficult thing was as we were trying to find our way out of the cave Rhys took away our head torches so we were climbing in complete darkness. We all worked together to get out of the cave but we were very tired once we got back to the lodge.

I woke up on wednesday morning and remembered I needed to pack for our overnight camp that night. Everyone was then hurried out the door to get to the resource centre to get some canoes and wetsuits. After trying to yank on the very tight wetsuits everyone got back on the bus to make our way to the point where we would canoe across the lake to the little island were we would camp out. But even before we go the canoes in the water we were going to go bridge jumping. As I nervously climbed under the railing of the bridge and hung off the edge I knew there was no going back. I jumped....and landed on my bum, luckily the wetsuit had padding so it didn't hurt. After all the hastle of getting changed Abby, Eva , Catherine, Ethan, Kevin Pugh and I got into our canoe and headed towards the campsite. Once we got there it was just a big confusion of putting up tents, blackberry bush cuts, burritos and the dreaded long drop.

The next morning I awoke in my tent squished up to Catherine and Eva. After an extremely nutritious breakfast of 2 minute noodles and leftover burrito mix we got back in the canoes and headed back to the bridge. We played a game in the canoes wher we all rafted up then were numbered and when a number was called those people would have to run across one end of the raft to the other. It took quite a while to return everything to the resource centre but our group decided to end the day with a go on the flying fox. The flying fox left you hanging about 20 metres up in the sky with a huge gorge underneath. You felt like the whole world was right beneath you. Once we had packed up it was time to return to the lodge for our last night at camp.

Everyone was slightly sad the next morning as everyone knew that in only about 6 hours we would be leaving the place that was our home for the week. The last activity that our group did was high ropes. we were going to climb up a huge wobbly ladder, the gaps between each rung about a metre and a half apart, in the 20 minute time period I got to the fifth rung, it was hard but i did it. Everyone was very sad to leave camp but a bit happy to see their families again. I know I will never forgt the experience.