Camp [Tuesday] - Camp, School, Tuesday

Okay, since I left my all-important maths in my locker today (I'm going to get a 0...again!

.) and there's nothing else better to do, I shall write up Tuesday about my camp.
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Okay, today is Tuesday. My god, I am shivering so much I sound like a rattle with my teeth. I get up after one of our camp leaders knocked on the door, and desperately try to find a jacket. Argh, my eyes are sealed by the sleep, my nose is all sniffy after not being able to find a tissue and I'm cold even though I've got so many layers including my sleeping bag. What worse can it get? I force my eyes open, and find a tissue and jacket to put on while I get up. I find my shoes, ah, here it was. I had to get up to go to the toilet last night, and I couldn't find my shoes so I borrows my friend's oversized ones. I open the door and find the temperature outside no different to the inside of my cabin. I walk down the small strip facing an electric fence and go to the shower room to wake myself up with water.

After doing all that, we need to get a fire going in the "meeting" area where basically everyone talks. This time, since we wasted ooh maybe 2 and a half match boxes?, we use some firelighters, easily getting the fire going. Chuck a few sticks each time getting bigger then the logs, you got a fire that will not need tending for an hour. By this time everyone is up and running, waiting with their bowls for brekkie. There's cereal and some juice, and inside you went to toast some bread. I had a bit of Vegemite on one and honey on another with some Apple Juice and some Rice Bubbles.

After everything is cleaned up, we go straight to packing for our activities. We get separated into two distinct groups (AKA loud mouths and quiet ones, which I am in the second group. Sure, give one of the girls to sort the groups out.). I was in the group where we went Mountain Biking. The day before we had a test run on our mountain bikes. Now, after packing all the eskies, water drums and the lovely portaloo (

), we set off with our already adjusted bikes. Before that, we practice some mountain biking musts. Feathering (brake on and off) and flat cranking (feet on both pedals equal while standing up). After all that and weaving in and out around the campfire, before the other camp leader kicked us out :p, we set off.

We set off and soon landed at a hill where we could practice flat cranking. Fun enough, they got it on camera and we went a few times before moving on. Oh, did I mention there were about 5 cattle grids that we had to dismount and push our bikes during the 5km driveway ride, and each time we stopped?. Well, now I have. I have got to tell you, that was one of the most annoying pricky exhausting bike rides ever. It was not the ground, because it was flat. It was the headwind. At times, I'd say the headwind reached about 70km/h. At the time when it blasted me, I'd say I was going at a snail pace of 4km/h when I was actually blasting my legs out. We finally reach the main road *sigh*.
At the end of the driveway, we practice "streamlining" which is basically for the leader to block the headwind so that everyone else gets a smoother ride, then we change over. On the way, we see a couple of cars, while the 4WD loading with our luggage follows us, sees a couple of cattle, rabbits and oh, a dead mangled wombat. Poor bugger didn't have much road sense.

We finally reach the mountain bike track and take a drink. From there we practice some flat cranking with sticks and logs laid on the path. We managed through, then we plowed on. The track seemed much like a road, and there was a small jump that was awesome, then we reached the main track. Heaps, and I mean, HEAPS of sand. You could literally dig a hole using your tyre. I'll just fast forward this bit really, since there's not much to talk about the ride. There were very steep and long hills (which I made through ALL of them) a couple of steep downhills and yeah. Maybe the only interesting thing is that my friend stacked 3 times. Mainly because he got over confident as he tried to bunny hop a log but clearly he couldn't, another when he went too fast down the hill (I didn't see it) and one on a jumps course. Let me tell you about the jumps course. Basically, it was a hill that was sharp enough for you to get some life, then you went a bit sideways as you went downhill and across a hill (kind of like chuting when you go sideways at a high speed).

When we finally reached the campsite at the end of the day, we walked a fair way and went down a steep steep steep downhill to load all the stuff up to the campsite. Man, try carrying a 30kg water drum up a hill. When I did my share, I walked back and saw them putting up the huge tarp that all of us (11 people) would sleep under. We tied the ropes to each tree as tight as we could and tied off the sides too. Then we set up an hour later after everything was brought up.
We got the fire going, and the place was so dark you could only be seen if you close to the fire. In our meal we cooked some pasta using Tranjias (basically a small pot that held EVERYTHING and runs on metho link My small group boiled the pasta, another cooked the sauce and the other chopped the veggies up.

After our meal, we got shown "la port-a-loo". We entered the gates of Heaven and to the port-a-loo. Want me to describe it to you? I'd be glad to. I'll describe him as "Fred". Firstly, you open up his "head" and then sit on his "mouth". Ah, but before you do your Number 2s, you have to stick his "tongue" out to open the shaft to the "throat". Now let go! Ah, to clean up his bad breath, you must push on his "ear" to let some "wax" cleanse and block out the smell.

Now, to dessert...MARSHMALLOWS! I made mine golden crisp, by just burning the top and taking it off. Then you brown the sticky top. While we ate, our camp leader told us the story of a kidnapping, that occurred only a few metres from our campsite. It told of a guy called Teddy in the 1960s that decided a get rich scheme and kidnapped children and a teacher from a school. He then demanded 1 million dollars AU (about 15 million AU today) to the Premier of the state. What he didn't realise is that the tracher miraculously broke the lock with her shoes and called the police with the children. He got arrested and was sent to gaol. A few years later, a detective caught wind of another kidnapping at the same place. He thought it sounded much like the work of teddy, but knew he was in gaol. But to make sure it wasn't him, he called the gaol up and found that he had escaped. He had been gone for 9 months. What he did during those 8 months was did a cave with a spoon that took 8 months to build. He captured the children agian, made a door on the entrance to the cave and a lock. Too bad he got ambushed again and arrested.

After that, we went to the cave that he "supposedly" dug (yes, they said it was a true story, but I think it was a load of BS). A few girls cried actually lol. We went inside, and it was probably the most amazing cave ever, The entrance is a bit like a tunnel, and the inside is a square cave. Maybe about 5 x 5 x 2. After that, we went to go to sleep. It was a huge tarp that we slept on and under with sleeping mats too. Off to sleep. This time I kept as many layers as I could. Surprisingly, during the night I slid down about one metre so that I was off the tarp and on to the solid ground. It hurt...
The night time wind was cold, but nice at the same time. In the end, I slept pretty well with all my friends (as strange as it sounds, yes, we did technically sleep together)
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End blog. Now how long was THAT?