Year 9 Camp 2 2022

Year 9 Camp 2 – 30 May – 3 June 2022

South West Victoria

The second half of our Year 9 students embarked on their journey to the Great South West at the end of May. Leaving Bendigo in the pouring rain, the group was surprised to arrive to blue skies and light winds in Portland.

The energy and enthusiasm of students as they set off in their groups made for a memorable experience. The students loved the range of activities: exploring the mighty Glenelg River via canoe, mountain biking through the Lower Glenelg National Park, and hiking some of the most picturesque coastlines along the Great South West walk from Nelson to Portland.

Our students faced some very challenging conditions on the Tuesday, with icy winds and hail testing the groups throughout the day and night. But in true Mercy fashion, our Year 9 students forged on and always helped each other out, whilst maintaining a positive outlook. On our return to Bendigo, the stories and excitement from the week were buzzing throughout the groups.

A huge thank you to our CMC staff for giving their week to support all students and facilitate a great experience for everyone involved.

Mr Jack Timmins, Year 9 Year Level Leader

Student Reflections

We cooked our food every day all by ourselves and had to do all our dishes too! My favourite meal would have to be the chorizo pasta. One morning Ty woke us up with his harmonica at 5.30 in the morning! We had a long 21km walk that day, but it was worth it in the end. It was very hard setting up camp in the dark and made it very hard when it was raining. Camp was a great fun experience, everyone got along in our group, and we had great camp leaders who made jokes with us and made it a more enjoyable time.

Kade Hutchinson & Madden Guthrie

After the long bus ride to Portland, we got off the bus and met our camp leader and got straight on the bikes and rode 20kms to our first campsite, where we set up our tents in the dark. The next day was an easy day, getting up later and catching a shuttle bus for 40 minutes and getting dropped off at Sapling’s creek where we had lunch and headed on a 5km walk. We arrived at the next campsite which was on the river and was our favourite site for the trip, everyone loved the river views. Everyone enjoyed it so much and would go back to camp if we could.

Alexis Whyte & Emily Jubber

Our experience at camp gave us many memories we would cherish for life. One of the hikes would test our mental and physical capacity as we had to walk 22kms. One felt relieved when this was accomplished. Overall, our time on camp was enjoyable and would highly recommend attending camp.

Caleb Tobin & Rossi Stevens

It rained on and off for all of Tuesday, which wasn’t very fun considering the fact we were canoeing. We saw some beautiful sights, ate some Tim-Tams and had lunch in SA. When we arrived at our boat ramp, we were back in Victoria and had canoed around 14km. We were then horrified to find that it was not over, because we still had to hike 2km to get to our campsite. Thankfully, we were taken pity on and driven to the campsite.

Shahla Filbey and Chelsea Breene

During the camp, we walked 25km, canoed 20km, and rode another 25km. The weather was quite wet on the first two days, but the last three days were great. The wind wasn’t too bad, but the weather was cold. We had to cook our own food and carry everything with us. We all loved how the whole group got close very quickly, and we all got along well. Everyone was supportive and checked in on each other lots.

Tarah Frawley, Aubrey Holden, Tessa Skipper & Eilish Grieve

Sitting around at the campsite, cooking dinner was our favourite part of camp, we told stories, played games and laughed. The next day, we all braced ourselves for what we thought would be the hardest day of our lives. On our walk, we saw blowholes, the seal caves, and NEVER-ENDING WINDMILLS. There were lots of breakdowns but despite all the tears, pain and loads of breaks, we completed our walk and made it to our third and best campsite. On our last day we canoed through the Glenelg River, the view was magnificent. In total, we spotted 13 koalas. Although we were all happy and excited to go home, we loved the experience and wish we could do it again.

Bella Goggin, Sophia Canny & Indianna Watters