July 24. Day 205. The school camp

July 1981.Luther Heights Youth Camp, Coolum.
Dear Dairy,
Get me out of here. I'm cold and wet and Miss Byrne is a bitch.
I am pretty sure you don't have to crawl around in the mud of a Mangrove swamp to see what they look like. Everyone is covered in mud and smells like dead fish (or that could be just the smells from whatever atrocity the kitchen is concocting).
Susan

Ok. That diary entry never existed. But it could have. The Year 11 Biology Camp was my only experience of school camp  and it was not pleasant. But things are so, so different these days. My son's schools have offered school camp as part of the curriculum every year since Year 3 (when they camped out in the tunnels at UnderWaterworld). For the most part the action of school camp is a secret business to the extent that what happens on school camp stays on school camp. But this year was different (sort of). This year was the Leadership Camp for Year 11s and parents were invited to drop in one night for a celebratory Mass and to have dinner cooked and served by the boys. During the camp, the boys conducted search and rescue, teamwork exercises, high ropes, initiative and raft building. They also had to cook, source their own tents and erect them. It was an hour and a half drive each way to the shores of Lake Moogerah but it was so worth it to see how the boys are stepping up to become young men. I didn't even get food poisoning from the food cooked by 15 and 16-year-old males. Result.