Camp Recount, WALT: tell a story in sequence

I hear kids around me yelling with excitement, the day everyone has been waiting for has finally come around! Teapot Valley camp! My heart was pounding with excitement. We all sat around the office playing, sitting, standing. We had a bit of time to mix it up because the parents had to grab the vans. Because we had to get there somehow.

10 minutes of waiting around I see the first van show up which means there were more coming. And we were leaving soon! I was hoping and dancing waiting for Mrs Bellis to tell us to sit down. Shortly after the first van had arrived, we had others following shortly after. Mrs Bellis told all of us to get into groups of a certain number. That determined who was in our van. Of course not everyone got the van they hoped for, but it’s hard to please everyone.

The van ride was quite fun, we played on our phones, ate lollies and just laughed like lunatics. We stopped in Reefton to stretch and go to the loo. Kurt tried to teach me and Daniella a game, but it was pointless! We were so confused. Mrs Bellis then got us into a not very straight line and told us our numbers for camp. That's how everyone will know if someone’s missing! Soon after we had to get back into our vans we didn’t have all day to mess around.  

Our last stop was in Murchison, that was kind of our lunch break, we had plenty of time to run around and eat. Some people even played with the tyers.   

Another 3 or so long and painful hours later, we arrived! We were all relieved and excited at the same. We started off by sitting on a patch of grass. Nicole and Jared talked to us about the activities, signs and the rules. After our chat about where everything was, we grabbed our bugs and headed to our cabins. I had Ella f, Daniella, Alyssa and Zoe (The adult). We chose our bunks and started playing.

I played around a little on the confidence course. After roughly 10 minutes we heard a buzzer, the parents told us to go and sit down in front of Nicole and Jared.  Jared mainly told us that we were doing our first activity, it was called Top Team. We got into groups of 9 and 10. There were 10 activities set out on the grass. We went over and listened to what we had to do. We had to rotate everytime we heard the buzzer go off. The aim was to get as many points as possible on each rotation.

On the first night we had chicken korma for dinner. Then we went over and did the burma trail. Reagan and I did it together. It was pretty fun! The adults tried to scare us, so did Noah A. We had a big hill we had to go down. Noah scared me and Reagan so hard we slipped over.

The next morning Zoe rushed us out of bed before we had a second to wake up! we had to get changed for the day, so of course we did and we also tidied up our room.

After that we made our way to the dining hall and waited outside for breakfast to be ready, everybody was playing 6 square.

The teachers finally came out and told us that we could come in and eat breakfast. We had toast, cereal and porridge as options. Teapot valley have a wheel called the ‘Lucky Scraper’ the way the wheel works is, there are 8 sides on every table, and numbers for 1-8 on the wheel. If the wheel lands on your number, you have to do the dishes for your table! We finished breakfast and played until we heard the buzzer.

When we heard the buzzer, we came back to the meeting place (front of the dining room). We got into groups and headed to our first activity, ours was rock climbing.

Rock climbing was pretty fun, we got on a harness and then got “harnessed” in. Ollie was at the bottom pulling the rope through, so we were completely safe! We got a chance to beat the record, Nathan ended up beating  the record I think it was something like 16 seconds. While we were waiting we had the choice to play basketball or pingpong. After we did rock climbing we got some food, the pattern for the camp was activity food, activity lunch, activity lunch, activity after noon tea.

The parents had put out some fruit and baking for is. After our fantastic lunch we sat back down in the meeting area. Jarad and Mrs Bellis told us where we were going next, my group was heading to the carts.

Some people on the carts were at bit nervous, but me? I was really excited! The way the carts worked was we had to have 2 or more people pushing a cart down the hill, once you got to the bottom you got pushed to Vanessa and the dog gypsy. Where the carts got hooked to the quad bike ready to go for the next lot of people. Once again Nathan got the record for the furthest cart, I was second, The furthest girl! We got between 3-5 go’s each. I had 4. I really enjoyed myself on the carts, we had to be quick so everybody got the same amount of turns. We finished our last round of carting ready for break.  This break wasn't like the others we actually went inside the dinning hall to eat, I’m pretty sure it was pizza. my groups next activity was abseiling.

I really pushed myself to do abseiling, even though I was a little scared, only because I knew if I didn’t do it, I would regret it. My turned finally came around, I was already all harnessed up and had my helmet on. I was all ready! When I got up to the top of tower I tried not to think about it to much. Because I didn’t want to sike myself out. But once I did it I was proud of myself. Our last activity  of the day was… the confidence course!

I was most excited for the confidence course. We started off by talking to Kate (Leevy’s Mum) we made our way across, Kate said if we need spotters that's fine, spotters were there if you needed help, they were just there to catch you if you fall or stumble. There was obviously a challenge, and the challenge was to not touch the ground if you did it was ok. You got the choice to go back on from where you fell and keep going, or you could start again. The choice was yours. The hardest one for me was going on the tyres and then on to the monkey bars, only because I had used all my muscles on the tyres, and then had to use the rest of it. But I did it! Because that was our last activity for the day we headed back to the meeting place, and got a little snack and then all of us kids got to go and play!

That's all I can remember from that day. To finish it up, we played and had dinner, After dinner we played spotlight! We had about 2 or 3 rounds, then we were allowed in other peoples cabins (with their permission of course) A bunch of us were hanging out in Reagan’s cabin and there was obviously drama. So I kinda switched between mine and Reagan’s cabin.

We then all got called into the dinning hall just so the adults could try scare us with a power cut and ‘ghosts’ and so they could tell us to have showers and to not go into anyone elses cabin otherwise they would be sent home.

On day 3 we still had to get up early around 7.30 it’s not that early. But it’s camp we all wanted to sleep in! I felt like I was just going to pass out as soon as my head hit the pillow. But Zoe has her ways of getting us girls out of bed!

The morning was the same as yeterday, we played until breakfast was ready. And once breakfast was ready we went inside and ate.

After breakfast everyone went into their cabins and tidied up, after I tidied up my stuff I went on the bouncy pillow and just jumped around. The buzzer went off and everyone joined each other in the meeting place. And set off to our first activities. My groups first activity was… Zip lining!

When we went over to zip lining we had a rope to stay behind, just so we didn’t get hit when people were coming down. We had 4 harnesses and had to go in pairs. I went with Jono first of all, once the first 4 have been harnessed the first pairs goes and brings the rope up to Ollie who was standing at the top of the abseiling tower, after we gave the ropes to Ollie we had to climb the ladders to get to the second or third floor. Meanwhile the other pair is making their way to the seat ready for their turn. Back at the abseiling tower you got clipped in so if you slipped you wouldn’t go anywhere. Finally Ollie unclipped us and asked if we wanted a countdown from 3. Jono and I said yes. He counted down from 3, then Jono and I jumped off the tower, swiftly moving on the zip lining Steve (Nathan’s Dad) and Phil (Pyper’s Dad) were down by the rope ready to grab the rope underneath us. Then we hopped on a ladder and got unclipped. I went 3 more times, twice with Alyssa and once with Daniella. We finished up the activity ready to get some food.

After we finished our food and had some play, the horn blew again! And we met in the meeting place again! My groups next activity was… Low Ropes, that was with my Dad (Brent).

We got to low ropes and my Dad showed us what to do on each one. We took turns trying different ones, once again we were allowed a spotter if we didn’t feel comfortable, I didn’t need a spotter. I completed 3 of them. Another one we did was we needed a buddy we needed to make our way across 2 wires that went further apart the further you got. I did that with Alyssa, My Dad and Daniella. Me and Alyssa were the best pair! We got pretty far. Another one was that we had to stand on a log and move from Tallest to Smallest, the tricky part was that if we feel off we had to start again. That part of low ropes was pretty hard. We eventually moved on to a white barrel, that was my favorite because it involved teamwork we had to get everyone in our group over in as short time as possible. We had to have a couple challenges along the way like, we couldn’t touch the sides with our hands otherwise our hands got ‘chopped off’ and we couldn’t use them. All the groups got timed, our time was something like 1 min 21 seconds. Not %100 sure.

The horn went off again this time was different we had lunch so it was eating in the dining hall and longer play. My next activity was Archery.  

Archery was pretty self explanatory, we had to shoot at a board with different colors. I was really bad at archery, so I only had 1 go. I wish I had more turns. But I’m a perfectionist if I think I’m bad at something I won’t do it. Which isn’t a good thing.

After food and play, my group got told which activity we were going to my activity was… Team Building!

At team building I got put in a group with boys, I was the only girl. I didn’t mind though. Because we were racing through all of the activities. The last one where both groups had to get pipes and hold them together, so that the water could pass through to a bucket. I said I would get the water, I kept getting it in Matthew’s sleeve so he help with getting the water. Because we wanted to win! We heard the horn and asked Zoe if I could put the rest of the water in my tin in the bucket, she said yes. So I tipped it in I got her shoes a little bit wet. So she tried to pour the water in the bucket on me as a joke! She missed.

I played on the bouncy pillow with Nathan and Noah we were doing backflips on the bouncy pillow. Until Mrs Bellis told us that if we really wanted to we could go on the water slide, I was debating with myself about it. But I did it, I did it once, but still I did it!

I got back from the water slide and played on the bouncy pillow with Noah A. we did heaps of tricks!

Around 15 minutes later dinner was ready we had Burgers! They were my favorite meal of the whole camp. After dinner we got told to get our acts ready for St Patrick’s got talent. Reagan, Robbie, Matthew, Nio and I all did an act together. It was a makeup thing. I destroyed Nio’s face with Mascara and bright Red lipstick!

I woke up sad that we had to go home today! And not wanting to go on that long trip home. But that morning Alyssa, Daniella and I got into a prank war with Robbie and Marko. It involved a lot toothpaste! On the way home I got some really funny photos and videos of my friends! Once we got back to Greymouth we had to get petrol to will up the vans. Then we go back to school and saw our parents! Definitely an experience I will not forget!