On the 15th of October (Tuesday) we packed our bags, came to Bulleen and started the long 4 hour bus ride to Toonalook. (Toonalook is around the Gippsland lakes.) On the trip we watched Mr. Bean which is a very funny comedy. He is an innocent character who always makes viewers laugh and hates the blue car. You’ll know what that means if you’ve watched it. Half way through the trip we stopped at Yarragong for a morning tea break. Because it was near a busy road we would always wave to the cars and trucks hoping for them to honk their car horn back. It was kind of funny. Then we got back on the bus and kept going. 

When we got to Toonalook we were greeted by Josh who was basically running everything in the camp. There was also Jesse who was my group leader and Grace who was team 2’s group leader. We also had two year 11’s with us (em(Emily) and Charlie(Charlotte)) who helped out in the groups and make different activities for us. We nervously sat at the bench we would meet up at as the staff read out our tent groups I was lucky enough to be with my friends.

Some of the things that we did included:

•went on Toona storm

•went kayaking

•expo camping

•played empires

•played king ball

•played the shoe game

•played bang

•played Gaga ball

•went on a water police boat 

•went bike riding

•went fishing

•went koala hunting

•Toona challenge

•found koalas 

•found kangaroos 

•went on a hike (kind of)

•ate! #wewanttrish

Toona storm is a boat that we went on. The weather was perfect for it because we could go really fast and still the boat jumped up and down. The other boat that we went on was a water police boat. This was probably the coolest boat I’ve ever seen! They had beds, kitchens, bathrooms and more. We got to ask them questions, explore their boat and have a good time. We also went on a 7 or 12km bike ride but I’m not sure which one. It was really fun because in that time we got to see koalas and kangaroos. We went koala hunting and by the end of that we were experts at finding them because we had the technique. Firstly find a tree, then look down and find lots of koala poo, and lastly look up and see a big fat cute ball of fluff! We saw all of these things on Raymond island. On the bike ride we went on roots, sand and roads. It was so fun.

The games that we played included; Gaga ball, king ball, the shoe game

Toonalook had so many things to do. Two really fun thing that we played were king ball and the shoe game. King ball is basically 4 square except much bigger. We played on four water tanks with a volley ball type ball. The ball could only bounce twice in your square otherwise you went out. The objective was to get people out so that you could make your way to king for as long as possible. In best level order there was king, queen, jack, dunce and yes there was a very long line on the bench! Most people spent their free time playing this. The other game ‘the shoe game’ was a two team game that was very exciting. Two teams were facing each other on chair with a space in between. In between at the middle there was a water bottle and two shoes. On the sides there are cushions. When the referee calls a number that you were assigned before the game started you run and get a shoe then sit on a cushion and try to throw the shoe and hit the bottle to get a point for your team. The rules were very strict but there are way too many for me to say now. But everyone was almost screaming because they were encouraging their team so much. Empires was such a good game. We played for a while at night while at expo. How the game works is; each person tells the people who are running the game a person who isn’t them then someone starts and guesses who someone is. If they get it wrong then the person who was guessed gets a turn. If it was correct the player who was guessed goes to the other persons team. Then it keeps going until there is one empire and the leader of that empire wins.

Before we played empires we went on a hike to the camp site and on the way we got to try to skim some rocks on the sea. Then we came to the camp site and pitched our tents. It wasn’t too hard to put our tents up but it was one of my first times putting up a tent. Then we unpacked for the night and had some dinner. That night we ate burgers which were really good. Unfortunately Trish our amazing chef wasn’t there but Jesse still did an incredible job. I was a little bit nervous when we had to go to sleep because one of the teachers at our school had to go to the toilet at Toonalook one night and then a kangaroo started chasing them so I didn’t want that to happen to me. I had an okay sleep but I had to use quite a bit of resilience in the morning because it had rained and somehow my stuff had got wet when it was in the tent. I had to use resilience, connectedness and courage in this time. Connectedness to build our tent together, resilience to even sleep and courage to get up at night to go to the toilet! 

A simple but amazing thing that we got to do on camp was… dun dun dunnnnnnn, eat! Trish was the chef that made us all of our meals and those meals, let me tell you were incredible. For lunch we would have rolls, burgers or wraps with vegetables and meat in them that we got to chose from which was fun. We also had lots of other great food. On the last day of camp when we were going to say thank you to Trish we started a chant that went, we want Trish, we want Trish, we want Trish, etc. 

Then we packed our bags and came home.

Camp was so fun and we were all very lucky to have the great experience of Toonalook. 

Here is a video of our time there:

Have you ever been to Toona? How was your experience there? If not then what is your favourite place you’ve been?