Day 35 Lake Eildon - Victoria, Australia

Back from my first camp. So tirrrreeeeedddddd! My sickness didn't go away while sleeping in the out-of-doors, so now I have to recuperate. Lake Eildon was a decent trip, it wasn't OMG! BEST TRIP EVER! Like most OEs (Outdoor Education Majors) and POEs (Physical Outdoor Education Majors) would say. It was tough because I didn't have all of my energy due to being sick. I was in a group of maybe 50 second years, and we took a charter bus 2.5 hours to Lake Eildon, specifically Bluegum Caravan Park (camp ground). There were showers, toilets, a fridge, and microwave to use. I didn't use any of those, except the toilet - you know, in order to get the "real camp" experience. When we arrived we set up camp, which was totally up to you on where you wanted to set up your tent.I set up the fly with Flick, next to Tanga and Alyssa (a Canadian study abroader). Next was tea.Dinner was my first opportunity to cook outdoors for myself. It was plain: pasta with salami and capsicum (red pepper). Plain, but better than easy mac. I was trying to observe and take note of how all the second years were doing their cooking. There was one bloke, Whiz, (everyone has crazy nicknames and that's all I know them by) who could cook very well. I sat next to him and wrote down some of things he cooked while he explained what foods I could take on trips and how to cook them.

Soon it was bed time. I went into the fly after Flick was already asleep and I didn't want to wake her, so I got into my sleeping bag with no light. Found out in the morning that I slept in the sleeping bag upside down. I also learned that it's pretty much impossible to sleep on your side on the ground, and being a side sleeper this was a problem for me. Not having a pillow also made things uncomfortable.I laid there for a while and would doze in and out of sleep. Then it hit me - I had to pee. But I didn't want to get out of my nice warm sleeping bag and walk all the way up to the toilets. I finally gave in because I REALLY had to go. I got back and fell asleep nicely, until daylight when these damn white birds made the loudest most annoying noise EVER. In the morning I found out from Alyssa, the Canadian who's studying nursing here, that the reason why I couldn't sleep well was because my body was using all of its energy to heat my bladder because I had to pee, and once I peed it could heat the rest of my body making it easier to sleep. Sweet. Now when I have to go, I'm going right away! Oh the little things…

On our first official day the group of 50 got split up into two groups. One went with Pom to Lake Eildon for canoeing, the other (my group) went with Sean to do whitewater stuff. The first activity we did in the morning was river crossing. We were once again broken up into two groups and had to practice getting across the river that consisted of a fast moving rapid areas. It was fun because Sean explained the basic safety techniques and told us to just do it. The water was a little chilly, but we tried all different ways of getting across. There were two people designated as throw baggers further down the river whose job it was to throw the safety bag and tow us in if we got washed away, which we all did multiple times. After we finally made it across a few times and debriefed about the safety elements we had lunch. For the afternoon we took the rafts up the river to the dam. Everyone else pretty much knew what's going on, but Sean always starts with a "refresher" so I, along with maybe a few others who may have missed the rafting last year, know what to do. We inflated the rafts and went out on the water.

Once on the water we had to practice capsizing and flipping our raft back over. I'm sure it would be fun to watch a bunch of rafts purposely flip over and try different techniques to flip right side up. My raft did it three times: the first time I collected and held the paddles as Whiz, Bej, and Zac, got on top of the raft and flipped it. The second time Zac held the paddles while Bej tied the throw bag rope on one side of the OS (Oh s*** rope - the rope the goes around the raft) and threw it over to Whiz and I as we pulled it forcing the raft over.Lastly, we climbed on the raft when it was upside down and used the water draining holes to pull it over - that one didn't work as well. After learning how to flip rafts we practiced different scenarios where someone might have fallen out of a raft and into the rapids, and what to do if a raft is dumped and everyone is out and about. Sean never really prepped us, he just set something up and had us do it. Then he would ask us what went well and didn't, and how to do it better next time. Everyone was super friendly, and knowing that I had little to no experience my raft mates let me practice being the guide, and teaching me how to steer the raft. We finally went through a few "rapids," not really that big, just fast moving water with rocks.

On the second day we were suppose to go with Pom to Lake Eildon, but Pom got really sick the night before so he couldn't take us. Instead, Sean had some friends who were staying at the park take the other group on the rapids while he took us canoeing. Lake Eildon is a manmade lake that was formed when a dam was created to create electricity. It's pretty nice, has some pretty steep mountains surrounding it.For the canoeing trip the scenario was setup that two canoes would be the "leaders" and everyone else would be 10th graders on a canoeing trip. Sean would tell the "year 10s" to do stupid things, causing problems for the leaders so they could practice being leaders.He really didn't have to do that because everyone loved role playing, giving each other a hard time and causing problems. Sean would just sit back in his canoe with his dog (Sean's dog went everywhere with him, in the canoe, in the van, he was a pretty cool dog) and laugh at us. My canoe partner was Zak Bahramis, or Bahramis as everyone calls him. He was one of the biggest instigators and we did some off the wall things. We would take off ahead of the group and not listen to what the leaders were telling us. For punishment the leaders had us capsize so they could practice and show everyone else how to do a "T" rescue. When we dumped and one of the canoes of leaders came to rescue us, I swam up to their canoe and dumped them. They were not happy. It was all fun and games, but I feared what they were going to do to us when it was our turn to be the leaders.

The rest of day was fun with groups acting like stupid 10th graders, doing things Sean would tell them to do in scenarios to see how the "leaders" would respond. Or people would just give each other hard time by not listening, tipping over, canoeing away from the group, yelling, all good fun. When it was finally time for Zack, Bej, Whiz, and I to be the leaders we got the hypothermia situation. We handled it decently, but it was tough not having any prep information. Afterwards we did more canoeing scenarios before we loaded up and headed back to the campsite. Once we returned to the camp, we packed up all are gear and waited for the other group to finish so we could head back home.

I've decided that I can tell that Outdoor Ed is not my "life calling," mainly because I find that I have to put a lot of effort to ask questions and learn. In the broadcasting field, stand back, because I get crazy aggressive asking any and every question - wanting to know how everything works, taking it all in. Here, I don't have a real drive. It's fun, I enjoy being outdoors, I also enjoy that the atmosphere is the complete opposite of broadcasting - a nice difference, but I have no desire to educate youngings about the great outdoors.I don't know if I can see myself being a guide in some park. Of course I will use the basic principles that I learned in this experience and apply them to life and to a career position that I will hopefully find one day, but as for being an outdoor leader…yeah, not so much. The reason why I think it's so popular here is that most high schools have outdoor classes where students can go on trips. So it might be like how someone wants to be a high school math teacher, science teacher, or outdoor ed teacher.And I think there's a bigger outdoor experience market here than the states.