Well, I’m glad to see that I’ve been missed. I know Samwise has her doubts, but that pendant has been doing some serious Earendil shining and evil warding.

Well, yesterday we had to do the jog and I ran about half the way – I know, I’m shocked. I was startled by a surprise visit from Ms. Danvers, Ms. Sammut and Ms. Giles. Then, we had brekkie and prepared to go to revegetation at HARDWICKE bay.

We learnt a lot about feral plants and it made me quite sad all the desecration that had been done. Then we were shown a few feral plants in their habitat and our wardli was dropped on the curb of a highway to pull out weeds. I found bending over painful, so I sat down and was rewarded by being called mermaid. How I’m a mermaid on land, I’ll never know…. Then we went home and proceeded to begin our bake-off. I watched and didn’t touch anything, because I knew the moment I did, bad would become of it. The wardli was fine with it, and made peach muffins presented as a bouquet and a banana, caramel and cream pie – so GOOD! And you’ll never guess what – we won! I was so happy…people said we drugged the judges, but we didn’t I assure you. Ms. Danvers and Ms. Sammut left before hand. Then, we saw Charlie’s Angels – Full Throttle. It’s wonderful seeing women kicking petunias in costume, foreign costumes and high-tech gear.   

We went to a national park today after playing castles. Our wardli made a mini Egyptian Atlantis in the sand, then went to another beach and swam and snorkelled. Everyone was in wetsuits but me, and I dragged Libi into the water (with her clothes on) twice because she called me mermaid. Will that child never learn? Then I went rock-hopping and played beach games like cricket and flags. I managed to squeeze in one last swim before we were forced to come home. We saw approx. 5 emus (including some baby emus) on the way home, at which point I realised I was sunburnt, despite my best efforts… then I did my usual job – sweeping – and did my best to do my work in “chill-out time” but kept getting distracted. Miss Giles left, which made us all sad. We had barbeque for tea and sprite to drink – our first soft drink in ages – and we all went a smidge hypo and gigglesome – quite amusing. Then we gave the nannas some pie from yesterday (I was put in a situation where I was forced to serve…oh dearie) and our roast bone for Jan’s dog.

And now I’m here, blogging. You should here what’s going on this side of the computer screen – weird stuff is happening. The sooner these poor kids get back to civilisation, the better. You know, it’s funny. When I read your comments, I have to translate two languages: elvish and French. Very nice, bloggers. Now I kinda know how Julie felt… it’s rather peculiar. Anyway, see you soon!

         Natalija

Once again a fantastical update into my unexciting life

We’re in the final stretch! Only a few more days to go now and we will be returning to civilisation with mixed emotions. I’m yet to decided whether I’m excited to be leaving or not. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Monday morning was terribly exciting with a wake up and escape from the staff dorm before our morning run which I managed to do a whole 3 minutes faster than normal making my record an amazing 27 minutes. We then piled on the bus and headed over to Hardwicke Bay to help some of the local ladies do some weeding. We all had a fairly good time getting to help out a husband and wife duo who were in their early nineties! One of the highlights was the arrival of Ms G and Julia’s return as well as getting to swing the axe like utensil that the local ladies called a grubber. We then got a lovely lunch from the council ladies and made our way to the shopping centre.

At the shopping centre we bought quite an amount of food even though we aren’t going to be here much longer and we were even 100 dollars under budget. As our wardli was making its way through the cash register Annie and I, as boarders, were very excited when Ms Sammut came across the road to tell us that Renee was over the road having coffee with her, Mrs Danvers and Ms G. After sprinting across the road and into Renee’s arms we had a quick conversation with her and made our way back to the bus. Not before we took a moment to walk suspiciously slowly past the hairdresser’s on the corner which was apparently owned by the scary orange lady that helped some of us for bingo.

Monday afternoon after shopping our wardli quickly made ourselves busy making copious amounts of ginger bread so that we could make a house. The final product, I must say, was an utter failure (as it was being held up by a potato peeler and a mug), but we had a bucket load of fun making it. That night we had chicken sausages and vegetables for dinner which greatly impressed the nanna’s. We then made our way back up to the classroom and showed everyone our fabulous (?) ginger bread house, which was so fabulous we scored fifth, out of five, in the baking contest. After the bake off we watched Charlie’s Angels and I was devastated when Maria didn’t fall asleep and start snoring once again.

Today was quite eventful as well. We got up this morning and made our way to fitness to play a rather odd game of castles which I didn’t particularly enjoy. After that we had a quick breakfast and packed lunches before hopping on the bus and making our way to Innes National Park which was absolutely amazing. Our first stop at the park was near Chinaman’s Hat and we had a sandcastle making competition which wardli 4 won on a pity vote.

The next beach we stopped at was breathtaking and actually managed to bring tears to Helena’s eyes which was fair enough because it really was beautiful. We made our way down the hill and within five minutes we discovered a gabajillion (lots) of star fish. We then went snorkelling and found several sea urchins which were huge and some girls even saw an octopus. After that we lay about drying off and eating lunch before engaging in a ridiculous game of beach cricket. Alex couldn’t be a good sport and when I sneakily got her out when she wasn’t behind her crease she refused to leave because I was “in the motion of bowling”. After that we played a game of flags which I unashamedly cheated my way through.

When then had a bit of a paddle about accompanied with some shoulder wars which Hana and partner always won because of her ridiculous height. On the way home Maria and I also managed to fall asleep on each others shoulders and were woken up by several flash bulbs and people took photos of our “cuteness”.

This afternoon we had free time where Harriet and Maria tried to indecently expose me to the rest of the camp. We then went to chill out time and on my return I discovered my legs and to a degree my arms were the colour of a tomato. Go me for getting sunburnt.

After a fabulous dinner of spaghetti we made our way to the classroom where I discovered if everyone lived like me we are going to need 3.3 worlds. Now, as I am writing my blog, I have just been informed that Maria used to be under the impression she was Shakira as she can dislocate her hips and I’m going to leave very so I avoid receiving a demonstration of this amazing feat.

Goodnight one and all, I shall see you on Friday!

Hey everyone, hope you’re all well, bet you’d like to know how we are doing on this lovely camp of ours.

Well…on Monday we all got prepared for a fun filled day of revegetation at Hardwick bay. While all the other girls got to fix the towns oldest residents garden, Wardli 5 got stuck digging up stupid weed plants on the side of a main road. This was quite entertaining, especially when Isabella looked like an insane murderer using the grubber as the ‘death tool’. After finishing up we all went to the community centre to have lunch. After all the sandwiches we went on another shopping spree, this time going fifty dollars under budget unlike last time when we were under budget by three dollars. Then we got back to Wambana and prepared for the bake off. We, Wardli 5 had planned our creation for about a week. We made Banoffee, which is a banana and toffee pie and we also made cupcakes decorated as if they were a bouquet. Of course, we won, by a lot I must say. I truly feel sorry for all the other Wardli’s as they watched us get 10’s over and over again. Especially when Ms Giles said it was ‘Bloody Good’. We then watched Charlies Angels and I did not fall asleep nor snore to Sally’s dismay.

Tuesday, Kate and I got up to do ergo’s again. We didn’t get to fit in the usual jump squats, which was quite depressing. Then we got ready to go snorkelling and beach gaming at Innes National Park. We came across some gorgeous beaches which Helena thought were amazing so she cried, then explained how she cried in chill out when she saw a flock of galas. We then went to Browns Beach and it was amazing. Absolutely spectacular. Snorkelling was the most fun, freezing cold water but so many things to look at. Sally and Kate were my trustworthy exit buddies. After snorkelling we played beach games. Although my team were terrible at cricket, I managed to score lots of runs and lasted ages. But when it came to Flags, I was the first out and had lots more fun having a splash fight with Katie. On the bus way back, Harriet’s alter ego ‘Bushtucker Billionaire’ sold us bombs and other explosives in the space of five minutes. Then Sally and I fell asleep on each other and were woken up by flashes of cameras stuck in our face. Then for dinner Ellen and I cooked up a great barbeque. Now we are all looking forward to surfing tomorrow and will update about that soon.

Goodnight everyone,

Maria x

Well this is probably my shortest blog because its been pretty relaxed around her, mainly because of the weather.

Day 8 has been an interesting one. Firstly we had weeding at Harkwicke Bay to do. We met the ladies and learnt about all the different types of weeds and then we made like a rock and rolled. We weeded a elderly couple’s garden who were extremely grateful. Then we worked our way along the roads in Harwicke Bay excavating any weed that caught our eye. Then the next trip was upon us. Our wardli once again split in to room groups and Julia and I set off. We completed the task with time to spare and were once again $20 under budget. We returned home to enter straight into baking for the bake off. I made a coconut cake and with Hanna’s icing skills we created a low budget wedding cake and have been informed that we are hired for Josh’s wedding. We ended up coming 2nd to Wardli 5 with 98 and a half points. To top off a good night we watched Charlie’s Angels.

Day 9 has been my favourite day so far. Julia and I were leaders and after a game of castles for fitness and breakfast we were on the bus to Innes National Park. We were going to go snorkelling and play beach games but the first beach was too windy so we restored to a sand castle competition. Even though Wardli 5 made a ridiculous effort with their own Egyptian city, because they didn’t stick to the guidelines, WARDLI 4 WON THEIR FIRST EVENT FOR THE CAMP! I can’t explain how ecstatic we were.We then packed up and setted out for the next beach and on the way we dodged 3 lizards and a snake. The 2nd beach was just as beautiful as the first and we all quickly got into our gear. Julia and I were once again exit buddies and although I still didn’t see an Eagle Ray, we saw heaps of fish (even a creepy one with red and green eyes that took Julia ages to realise wasn’t actually a rock), a sea urchin and an octopus. We then entered into a game of beach cricket where I showed my diving skills and a game of flags.

Well, I’m sitting here, quite sunburnt but quite content with life. I now know about what everyone was saying when they say you miss home, but you could spend forever here. I have never laughed this much in my life and I have had memories that I will never forget

Lots of Love
Katie xxx

Hey All!

Day Eight

We woke up on Monday morning with another 3.4km run, which I’m trying to make myself believe is getting easier, making me fitter than I was at the start of camp. Unfortunately I still can’t beat my fabulous 18.09 time from the third day which is really annoying, so I’m determined to get better tomorrow.

We met at the bus at nine for the short drive to Hardwicke Bay to learn about the revegetation there and weed the garden of an older couple. After arriving at the Community Centre a few of the local ladies talked to us about which plants are effecting the natural environment the most and the impact that introduced plant and weed species can have on these native areas. They told us about how these species are planted in the small town gardens to look appealing for their colour and shape, but soon the seeds will spread so that they have taken over areas around the home and eventually most of the town. We went for a drive so that these particular plants could be identified, before we got put to work at an elderly couple’s home. It wasn’t particularly hard and they looked very grateful for all of our work, handing out apricot delights at the end. After this we went back to the Community Centre for lunch put on by a few of the locals, with delicious sandwiches and ice-cream for dessert. The fritz and sauce ones were especially good, but the chutney put of a few people, with Zoe even saying “chutney is just a polite way to say that I vomited in your food.”

After lunch we were able to go food shopping again, and since we had bought a lot of food last week, we had lots of money left and could buy more snacks. This trip was also a lot quicker and less stressful, and I’m sure everyone is feeling a lot happier now that we don’t feel like we’ll run out of food.

At the supermarket we also bought food for the long anticipated bake-off, with my Wardli deciding to make one of Alex’s now famous chocolate cakes (we’ve already made about three this week). I tried to convince my group to make me bake caramel slice again, but for some reason they didn’t seem to like the one I made for them last week, which I found quite ungrateful really because I thought it tasted amazing.
To be more original we made cupcakes as well and ended up putting it together as a sun, with yellow M&M’s and marshmallows on top. Unfortunately Wardli five won after they made a bouquet of peach cupcakes that did actually look really cool.

Day Nine

Today was one of the best days so far as we spent most of it at Browns Beach in Innes National Park, which was beautiful and nearly brought tears to Helana’s eyes when she saw it. I don’t really blame her, with the clear water making great snorkelling conditions so we could go in again if we wanted.

We also played beach cricket and pretty much just hung out all day and constantly got in trouble for sunbaking. Lucy paid me out for re applying my sunscreen so many times but in the end it seems to have paid off, and I managed not to get burnt for once.

Only three more sleeps left, but everyone’s definitely excited about surfing for the next couple of days! Lots of love to everyone back home. Kate.

Last blog

Yesterday we did re-vegetation and the bake off. We went in the morning to the Hardwick Bay Community Hall and met a woman who lived in Hardwick Bay and was very passionate about habitat destruction. She taught us about weeds which was interesting because some of the weeds she spoke about I thought were just plants. She also taught us about how they were brought into Australia. After that we went to an old woman’s home and helped weed her garden and surrounding area. Then, we went to some sand dunes on the side of a road and pulled out a trailer load of weeds. For all our hard work we got some sandwiches which were really nice and some fruit salad, yum.
 We then went shopping and this time it was a lot easier. We had about thirty dollars left over which was great so we could get extra snacks. After that we came back to our Wardli so we could do the bake off. Our brilliant idea of a sun with sunglasses was shut down by Ms. Giles who thought that it just us trying to suck up to the other teachers. Unlucky for us we didn’t come first, Wardli 5 did. Stupid bunch of flower cupcakes and Maree’s toffee and banana pie. The teacher’s were then judged and Emily and Josh’s lemon meringue was the best pie I have ever eaten.
Today we went to Browns Beach and played beach games and went snorkelling. Before that we went to another beach which I forgot the name of and made sandcastles where we once again didn’t win the competition. At Browns Beach I’m pretty sure the whole of Wambana got crazy sunburn. Alex has a crazy wetsuit tan on her legs and I got red in the face.
 I’m excited for tomorrow where we get to go surfing because I’m going to not get out of the water until I can stand up on a board all the way down the shore.

As this is my last blog I thought I’d attach a photo of my Wardli during TOM. Missing you all but I’ll see you soon,

Harriet xx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

(and yes, I did feel the need to say this so publicly…)

WE WON THE BAKE OFF!!!! (Al, I’ll get right on it when I get back – and I know it’ll only get worse.) Unfortunately, I didn’t know we were blogging, so my camera is still in the Wardli. But yeah, we won, with a banoffee pie and cupcakes in the shape of a bouquet using icing (Isabella is extremely dedicated, so congrats to her for the layout!). We recieved several tens – the scores were out of ten, for each presentation, creativity, and taste. We had three judges (in order of seating): Josh, Ms Westra, Emily, and Ms (Jr) Giles. Kim was away; she only got back this morning. To quote Giles, our banoffee was “bloody good”. Mum, it was from the big yellow book you gave me The scores were (vaguely, because this is from memory) W2: 92; W3: 89 1/2; W4: 98 1/2; W5: 115!!!!! Whooo! The staff made a lemon meringue pie, although I didn’t try any because I wasn’t a judge so I didn’t think I should. Appartently it was quite good, except they stole the idea from W4 from the 2nd group of core kids.

We went looking for a good place to go snorkelling again, although I didn’t because I couldn’t be bothered to clean my wetsuit afterwards – and yes, I know I am extremely lazy (though I did end up rock-hopping all the way the to neighbouring beach). We had a sandcastle competetion on a beach – one group made a castle with spiralling paths, another made Australia (?), another did a turtle, and we made a city in Ancient Egypt, with a huge pyramid as the centre piece – complete with stairs – and two litler ones, and roads, houses, famrs and a giant wall. The pathway castle won, because it was appartently the only one technically a castle. But ours was a castle!! It was just foreign, with accessories!! Either way, I got some pictures before all the other (definitely jealous) wardlis smashed it. Our empire was the best!  

We had a BBQ for dinner tonight, and it was great. The meat was well cooked, and we ate it outside with a bottle of Sprite. We still have heaps of food, and since we’re going to lawn-bowls on Thursday night, we’ll have even more for the lack of cooking our own dinner. We were a full $50 under budget, shopping yesterday.

Anyway, surfing tomorrow and Thursday, it’ll be quite interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to stand up, but if they make us go through all that basic rubbish AGAIN on the sandI will be very infuriated.  

See everyone Friday, will be home at last!! HOORAY!!!!

Hey everyone!
I’m just making this a quick blog because:
a) no one reads this anyway
b) I’m tired and cant be bothered
and c) i wrote a blog yesterday!

So, to update everyone MY WARDLI IS AMAZING!! we won the bakeoff, it was so good we made a banoffee (banana and toffee) pie and a bouquet of peach cupcakes, it was actually amazing! We were the only group to get a 10 and we got plenty of them, we were all so proud!
Then today, we had a sandcastle building competition (my chance to redeem myself  after the incident with the little kid) and we did it in wardli’s. My wardli, being us, decided to make not just a sand castle but a sand EMPIRE! We made the pyramids of Giza (they were humungous), roads, buildings, tunnels, farms and a wall surrounding the entire city! I think we should have won but the Josh felt the need to point out that it was a sand CASTLE competition and only one group managed to make a sand castle… Ours was still cooler!

We did some weeding yesterday, IT WAS TORTURE and then today we went to Innes National Park (Chinamans hat) and is was beautiful, i loved it! I didnt go snorkeling with everyone else though, it was way to cold so i went rock hopping. Though when i was furthest away from everyone else i decided to take a break and a sandfly BIT me! I ran back to camp to put some cream on and take a telfast because i may have forgotten this morning… It only swelled up a TINY amount but it got me out of beach cricket for the afternoon

It was so disgusting, we had a barbeque for dinner tonight so after we cooked it i went back to get some water to boil in the kettle. As i was walking a fly flew into my eye and i blinked and killed it! Though i couldnt get it out, it was so disgusting having half a dead fly in my eye, hurt heaps too!

Thanks for the comments everyone.
ROSS AND CATHERINE IF YOU EAT ALL THAT SHORTBREAD I WILL KILL YOU BOTH, YOU BETTER LEAVE SOME FOR ME!!! (though Rossy, after your comments on my blog i’ll probably kill you anyway…)
Eleanor, thanks so much! i hope sophies not to lonely at rowing without me, i would really love to try some shortbread it sounds sooo good!! See you on Saturday!!
Rah, EXPLAIN NOW PLEASE!!! I CANT WAIT!!
Bella, are we still on for friday, i still want to come and help out i dont care if i’m just coming back from camp, the Xmas concert is only once a year!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDYMEME AND ELLI’S DAD!!! I HOPE YOU BOTH HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!

Thanks everyone for reading the blogs!!
Libi

Hey Guy’s Tori and the rest of Wardli 2 will be very happy with us because we won T.O.M!! Yes you should be very proud of us we were truly amazing…well not really but we thought it was funny at least! I played an Indian Hippie, Jess played a Spanish princess, Harriet played Kevin Rudd, Alex played a British Gangster and Kate played a rich Texan. Wardli 3 had a very interesting play with characters Prof. Ennis and Eugene Icup and after realising that Ms. Danvers was going to read there script they freaked out just a bit! On Sunday we had a roast which actually turned out quite nice. Connie also came to pick up Julia to take her to Britney (I was extremely Jealous), but the best part of Connie coming was that she brought us some buns and cakes from the bakery! Got to love Connie! On Monday we went food shopping for the second time which was a lot less stressful than our first shopping trip! We were under budget by a lot because we had heaps of food left over from the first week, when we found this out we all raced pack into the isle grabbing junk food! We now have plenty of snacks and so there is no more complaining in our dorm! Monday night we had a bake of, my dorm Wardli 2 came third but we so should have won! We made Alex’s famous chocolate cake with Betty Crocker icing (which tasted delicious) we made the icing yellow and made little cupcakes with yellow icing and made it into the sun with lots of lollies! I think ours tasted the best though I must say Wardli 4’s low budget wedding cake was pretty cool! Today we went to Innes National Park and we went for a swim the water was really nice and so was the weather. We also came to realise that Helena is very emotional when it comes to a beautiful flock of galahs flying pass! We also had a Sand Castle competition today but seeing as Wardli 4 had not won anything josh felt bad for them and let them win but everyone knew our beautiful sand turtle was awesome! Camp has gone really quickly, I’m looking forward to going home and seeing everyone but I’m going to miss Wambana heaps!

Yesterday after we went shopping we had the bake off. Our idea was amazing but the presentation at the end let it down a bit. We made a ginger bread wardli with ginger bread men that were all the people in our wardli. Even though our wardli was falling apart we didn’t deserve to come last. After the bake off we watched Charlies Angels which was great fun watching how real all the fighting was.

Today we went snorkelling and did beach games at Innes National Park and the beach there was amazing. We also had a sandcastles competition that we weren’t so lucky in as well. The first game that we played was cricket which our team was amazing in and we won by heaps. After cricket we played flags which I was terrible at because it is pretty much impossible to lie on your tummy then get up really fast and run up a hill to dive to grab the piece of pipe. Even though Sally cheated Emily still managed to win. After the games and snorkelling we swam for ages in the really really clear blue water. On the way home we sang, only a little bit out of tune, to whatever song it was. Harriet and I also proved that we were amazing singers and that we are going to try out for Australian Idol. When we got back most people were swarming Sally for her after sun gel as most people got burnt at the beach.  For dinner we had spaghetti bolognaise and it was amazing. The Nannas then came in and we were cleaning non stop until they left. It was horrible because the bin smelt so bad that when we opened the cupboard door I nearly vomited. Millie was the brave person that took out the rubbish and cleaned the bin. Now it smells normal again. Then we came to the classroom and we did all our water, electricity and waste calculations. I also found that if everybody lived like me we would need 2.8 Earths. I though that was ok considering that some people needed up to 5 Earths.

 Missing you all heaps and see you on Friday

Annie Xx