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Toonalook camp

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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?

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Sovereign Hill Camp

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In term 3 we are focusing on the 1850s Ballarat gold rush, this was one of the reasons that our camp destination for this term was. Dun, dun, dunnnnn… Sovereign Hill. Sovereign Hill is one of the closest experiences to the gold rush, they have replicas of all of the shops and buildings including the confectioners store, the gold office, the blacksmith and so many more. They also have a school that we actually attended. Here is some of my experiences that I had on the camp.

Sovereign Hill can teach you so much, even if you think you know everything about the gold rush and eureka stockade I’m sure that you’ll learn something else from Sovereign Hill. I have learnt and enjoyed so much about this camp. I’ve learnt lots from school including the toys that they used and how to write in copperplate handwriting. The toys that they used in the 1850s surprised me especially because they separated the toys into boys toys and girls toys. Some of the that us included skipping ropes, cup and ball, quotes with horse shoes, button toy and badminton with either a wooden bat or a bone bat straight from the butcher. I personally really enjoyed the badminton style game because it was really fun to play a familiar game in a different way.

I also learnt in school about copperplate writing. We learnt that you need to learn how to draw a pot hook which is like a ‘S’ but on a slant. This was fun and challenging. We all changed our clothes when going to school because our modern day clothes didn’t fit the time. (1850s) we wore knickerbockers which sound funny but are definitely not funny when you have to wear them. Because it was freezing over at Ballarat and the knickerbocker pants are only 3 quarter long it is freezing. We also wore some baggy shirts which came in various colours. Then we wore a hat, a blazer (jacket) and a tie that was like a bandana. This made the experience very fun and realistic.

School

We got to see the gold getting smashed out of quartz and then made into a golden bare. The gold got to over 1000 degrees Celsius hot. After this the man poured the liquid gold into a container and he had to be quick because even if it was so hot gold goes very solid very fast. Then he took solid gold out of the container and into water which amazingly made it cold enough for him to pick it up with in seconds. 

I felt lots of emotions at different moments in this trip from frightened to amazed here are some of those experiences. I was more excited than scared for the mine tours that we went on but I still had some fear. One of those experiences was when we went on a 45 minute long tour in a mine that was around 1 kilometre deep. For a whole minute or 2 we were in complete darkness, no light what so ever, even if you had your eyes completely open. This was kind of scary but I really enjoyed this then we went on the tour and it was really good. Another emotion that I felt was amazement. This was when we saw the Aura show. The Aura show first explained in a 3D movie of how gold was created. Then we saw a holographic type of show outside. After that we saw a short movie inside about the gold rush and eureka stockade but then… 3, 2, 1… the screen splits in half and we can see outside, the coldness of the air outside froze everybody but when the screens split we could see what was like gold rush diggings. Eureka hotel, bar, shops and tents. The show showed us the eureka stockade in action and how the Bentley’s hotel burned. Amazingly there weren’t a single actor! There was only screens on buildings that showed people on them that could move around each screen.

At Sovereign Hill we got to buy some things. Some of the things that I got were for my family members and when I gave them the gifts they were so happy and that made me very happy to see them liking the presents that I’d got for them. 

A PLA that was used a lot was courage. We used these in school when the inspector took a visit to our school. He was checking out how clean things were and how up to standard our work was. He expected the grade 2’s (these year levels were by height but we’re all really in year 5 (in our normal school)).to know their 12 times tables and the year 3s, 4s and 5s to know their 17 times tables. I was in year 4 so I had to know my 17 times tables. The year 2s did very well and were very fluent and same were the year 3, 4 and 5s but we mucked up a little bit at the end. The inspector was impressed but then he needed to see the boys copying books and the girls sewing. Some of the boys work was a bit smudged because the nip quills were very hard to use. Ma’am used the excuse the a bird had come inside and sat on their work which wasn’t true but the inspector believed it. Then the best part came. The inspector used to have a horse and went to Master. Leo’s dad to get new horse shoes on the horse. Master. Leo’s dad is hard of hearing and to get your horse four new shoes you can say ‘can I get my horse shod. Now because Master Leo’s dad is hard of hearing he heard ‘can I get my horse shot’. So he killed the horse. Then the inspector asked Leo if he’d had lots of meat that night and Leo answered ‘yes’. This was so hilarious but it was so amazing because Master Leo kept a straight face the whole time somehow.

To enhance the Sovereign Hill camp I would’ve loved to have one more day at school. We had only 2 days to learn everything but if we had one more day it would’ve been more fun and easier. I also would’ve loved to try some of the professions that the shop keepers had. This would’ve been so fun and we would really have understood what the shop owners did.

Have you been to Sovereign Hill? Do you know anything about the gold rush or Eureka stockade?