Yarra Term Week 2 2020
Its week two of the program and the week of our first camp. Everyone is feeling a little nervous but mostly excited of what is to come.
Wednesday started with a bang as we dove straight into our hip-hop writing session. During this session we work from Yarra Youth Services and get long term friend and very talented musician Motley to take the session. Motley is a well know artist around Australia and the globe and is one of the best in working with the students to pick a theme, write their verse and then record their part. During this session the young people picked the theme of behaviour and everyone added their own interpretation onto that. Some spoke of school while others spoke of life outside school. After writing their part Motley took everyone into the booth one by one to record it. This is the most daunting part of the day and everyone did extremely well to rap their part. After this and some Motley Magic we finsihed the day by listening to our completed song which was a hit! During this session we also took an online test to find out what our top 5 character strengths were. It was great to see a mix of strengths amongst the group ranging from kindness to bravery to humour and the like.
Thursday is here and so is our first camp! We picked up the crew form Collingwood, packed our bags and camping gear at CAS then drove straight to the Cathedral Rangers. Once at the Cathedrals we geared up with our big hiking packs and started our walk on the messmate track to the camp site. On this walk everyone did well to keep each other in high spirits and remind positive. With a quick pace and positive mindset we were at the campsite and setting up our tents before we knew it. The great thing about this term is the amount of daylight that we have. We were able to chat, relax in the bush and cook our dinner with no rush. Another treat on this day was the fact that we could have a fire as there was no fire ban. We all collected logs and with some mad fire skills from Brendon had a roaring camp fire to sit around as we debriefed the day. We went to bed that night feeling satisfied with what we have achieved during the day.
Friday we woke with mixed emotions. Overnight it got quite cold and some of us didn't expect this. Others woke stating they had had the best sleep of their life. Regardless we all got up and hustled to have breakfast and pack up our campsite. With encouragement and help from others everyone was able to pack away their things and pack down their tents in the set time frame. This allowed for a great start to the day and ensure that we were at our waterfall walk on time. The walk we do on this day is at Steavenson Falls and is a lovely climb up to and around the gushing waterfall. Armed with only a small backpack we started this camp and maintained an impressive pace. With a focus on high resilience responses and a growth/positive mindset we smashed out the walk and were able to stop and enjoy the small things along the way. On the drive home we stopped in the Black Spur to have lunch at one of the picnic grounds and then made the journey back to CAS. Once as CAS everyone notched their energy up a gear to unpack their gear and hang the tents and sleeping bags. We then debriefed the two days, congratulated each other and called it a day.
