1998 School Magazine

Girls Graniinar :^iconol ;!Irish ane 1998

~!^

HPF, liraser Island Camp

he senior HPE class of 1998 set out on 14th June, unsure around, warnings for' the next day, and horror stories concern- of what lay ahead in the four days that we would spend ing just about every aspect of the camp so 'far, from dingoes to

toilets to cooking to the infinite kilometres ahead were ex- changed. The teachers also had quite a laugh on this night, particularly Mr Lanham, listening to everybody whingeing about their day. . The third morning was absolutely hell - knowing that there was still one full day of walking ahead of us, we all struggled to pack up our campsites and reluctantly depart from the beautiful Lake MCKenzie. The two halves of the class bade farewell to each other, and settled down to walking. This day was relatively uneventful up until lunchtime, although we did meet several tourists whose sense of distance and size were extremely warped (you should see what they describe as tiltle' hills). By twelve noon, we had reached Lake Wabby, which was our designated lunch site. 11 was at this moment that the heavens opened and a huge SLorrn broke. Thus, as we trekked across the awesome Hammersione Sandblows, on our way to our final campsite, Eastern Beach, we were freezing, wet and barefoot (we tool< off our shoes as they were killing us). To top this off, we then couldn't find the trail which would take us to the beach Led by the fearless Sasha, our group, including a protesting Mrs Mungomery, walked, climbed, and crawled through a couple of kilometres of scrub and bushland until we finally made it to the beach - but we had no idea where we were! After a lengthy conversation with some South African tourists whom Kim and I found on the beach, we established our position and finally found our campsite. By this time, of course, the rain had stopped, but we were still sopping wet. We were just glad to have made it We spent the afternoon digging pippies for Mr Kimball from jinbil, who was fishing tout not catching anything), and preparing for dinner. This was a great campsite as we were only metres from the beach (camping in the dunes), and it was fun just to inuck around on the sand and in the water. This night was spent just laughing and chatting, and delving into the history of rock'n'roll music with 'oldies', Mr 1

on Fraser Island. Even though we had been thoroughly briefed by MTS Hatvey-Short, nothing, and I do stress nothing, could have prepared us for the next four days, which could arguably be either the best or the worst experience of our short lives After a three hour bus trip from Brisbane, and a brief sojourn at Rainbow Beach, we were finally o11 Eraser Island. The class had previously been divided into two groups, and this was where we split up. One group was dropped at the southern point, Dini Village, whilst the other half were deposited at Eurong, which is further north. The groups had three desig- nated campsites at which to stay over the three nights, these being Lake Boomajin, Lake MCKenzie and Eastern Beach. The object of this camp was to display navigation al abilities in finding these campsites, demonstrate survival techniques such as cooking nutritious, edible, appealing meals, and pitching tents, as well as remainino cheerful, sunny and smiling throughout the entire trip. We were accompanied by fourwonderfulsupervisors, Mrs Orme, Mrs Mungomery, Mr Chapman and Mr Lanham I was with the group that was deposited at Dini Village, which is on the eastern side of Fraser Island. Here we divided further into our walking groups, which were made up of two cooking groups, and we were on our way. My group consisted of Sasha, Kim, Marcia, Gina and 1

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