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Camden Haven High School

Camden Haven High School

Aim for the Highest

Distance Education Camp

students

CHHS Distance Education held its annual school camp on the 2nd - 4th December. 

A massive thank you to everyone who were able to plan around and still make it all happen when dates had to be changed at the last minute due to the bush fires in the area.

This year the camp was held at Halliday’s Point. The accommodation was fabulous and the facilities were fantastic. Camp is always a positive experience for the students, their families and staff that attend.  This year was no different. In fact, we would be confident in saying that it was one of the best to date. The camp was titled ‘Happy Holidays at Happy Hallidays’ and the theme  ….you guessed it…‘holidays’ was abound. All activities aligned with the ideas of holidaying, celebrating culture and making memories.

On day one, Mrs White carried out an indigenous workshop where the students made individual artworks, learning about aboriginal symbols and the meanings behind these. Creating hand artworks that revealed information about connection and students own personal journey’s. These will be collated and used in a collaborative artwork to be displayed in the school.

We were also lucky enough to be Welcomed to Country by representatives of the local community, those Elders of the Warrimi mob, Aunty Janice and Uncle Steve. Steve took us on a tour of the area showing bush tucker and bush medicine known to the old people of the region, all within 500 metres of modern roads and houses.  He also showed us significant land marks including trees that were used to make canoes and spears. 

In the evening CHHS language teachers came down and ran international cooking workshops where the students chose between cooking (and eating!) Japanese, French, Italian or Indonesian. Knowledge about these particular cultures was shared. This was a very successful evening and students were exposed to ‘new’ cuisines and experiences, reflecting the theme of ‘Holidays’.  After full bellies and cleaning up a trivia night finished off the evening. The boys group once again demonstrating their extensive trivia knowledge.

We were up and at it the next morning where we shared breakfast with the local birdlife….and there were a lot of them! Very friendly (and hungry) lorikeets joined us and quickly stomped out all conversations we were having from their very loud chirping, in fact some would call it screeching not chirping.  These birds were incredibly friendly and provided us with a great deal of entertainment.

We were fortunate enough to have fabulous weather when we went on our cruise around the Lake at Forster, and also when we went to Big Buzz Fun Park. The Fun Park saw student’s engage in many fun filled physical activities, like laser, putt putt, target golf, slippery slides, water slides, tobogganing and go karts.  Funny things happen at Fun Parks when mothers, daughters and golf are involved!

Perhaps the highlight of the camp was the Mystery Destination hunt. Students were required to, in groups track down a number of clues that led to a final destination, somewhere in the world. They had to piece together the clues (once you found them) the group had to race back to base camp to dress their little local, to be the first to claim the prize.

It was a fabulous few days and we are very grateful for the positive interactions and memories made. Thank you to all who made this possible.

Katrina Carney and Sharon Wilson