This last weekend I went camping for my Leadership Concepts and Skills class and surprisingly enjoyed the entire thing. I had to brush off the long lost skills - like putting together and taking down tents, peeing in the bush... drunk, and other vital things - but came out with a very pleasant experience.
The trip started on Saturday when we left school at 7AM for our camp site. We camped in an area called Kangaroo Valley which is south of Sydney by about 2 hours. So we arrived at the camp site just after 9AM and then we got to it. After having to haul all our gear (tents, chairs, food, and everything else) up to the site we set up camp. Once we had lunch and everything was set up we broke into teams to begin the fun....
Our first task was to all learn to read a map and use a compass. Seeing as how this was the first time camping for some people there was a bit of a learning curve with the compasses and maps. Once we had mastered those skills we set off for an afternoon of orienteering. Orienteering is when there are markers placed in random/strategic places throughout the bush and you have to navigate yourself from one point to another. Now this sound pretty straight forward and is when you are thinking of most of the forested areas we have in the states... but bring that to the Australian bush and it's a whole new game. There were times when we literally could not see more than five feet in front of us because the brush was so thick. Add to this the fact that it's spring so there are snakes and ticks and the picture gets even better.....
My team did really well and was able to do some major orienteering (over 6Ks of tracking) and finally made it back to camp exhausted and hungry at 7:30PM. The night proceeded with some massive steaks, drinks, and S'MORES!!! Now as you know from previous posts there was a bit of searching that had to be done to find graham crackers, but I managed. So I was able to show some people s'mores and give them a taste of true American camping. Needless to say they loved it!!
Sunday was more task oriented (aka less walking more thinking) and ended with a gorgeous canoe ride. Over both days we lucked out on weather - it was sunny with a few clouds so not too hot - especially considering it rained all last week. After two days of activity, no showers, peeing outside, and dealing with all sorts of animals we ended the day with seeing lots of kangaroos and wombats on the bus ride home. Considering what we learned and experienced I would say this class has been worth the tuition payment. :)
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