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Camping in Puncak written by Reilly from grade 4
On April the 6th-7th, the grade 4, 5 and 6 students left to go camping to Kampung Awan in Puncak by bus to learn about survival. It almost took 3 hours to get there. Can you imagine that? In the bus I sat in the back with the boys from grade 5 and 6. We pretended to race while having a snack party. We enjoyed it, but it ended when a Ferrari raced past us.
After going through a long and, towards the end, bumpy ride I felt like a scrambled egg. But that feeling ended when we got out of the bus, which felt really good. We arrived on a plain field, lined up in our assigned groups and started hiking to our campsite. When we arrived we sat on the carpet and started learning the harmonic clap. It was a series of claps and chants. Not long after that we played the cooking and tent games. Instead of our initial four groups, we were merged into two groups, then split into four groups again for the two games. That was a bit confusing.
After the ‘ice-breaking period’, we started the outbound games. There were a lot of games, for example: Pinball, Glass Pyramid, Crowded Octopus, Ice Bucket and many others. Each group had to choose four games. They were all fun, but we were all either soaking wet or full of mud when we went back. After the games all groups were called for the challenge games. In one game we had to move flour to a cup using our hands and passing it backwards to each other. At the end of the game we were covered in flour to the extent that I couldn’t even recognize my teammates. The next challenge was water jet. There was a ball in the pool and we had to get it without falling in. One person held our feet and the other teammates pulled at the ropes on your torso. When the games were finished we were… well… soaking wet.
After showering and changing we had dinner. We ate some of the food from the cooking competition and other delicious food. Later we visited each other’s tents and practiced our chants. Then we went to the carpet and wrote our bad habits on a piece of paper. I had no idea what we were going to do with it. When we went to the campfire site, we lit it up and burned our bad habits to pieces.
Then it was time to go to sleep. In the tent I had an idea. Since it was so dark, I put my friend Dafa’s flashlight on top of the first layer of the tent. It was so bright it took a moment for us to get used to it. We swapped stories and told secrets while the other tents were engulfed in darkness. Although it took some time for us to fall asleep, we evetually slept because the stories were really scary.
I woke up earlier than I thought and saw all my friends awake. Well…except for Philip. Instead of his head, his feet were on his pillow. I had to shake him so hard to wake him up. After we ate our breakfast, we did a warm-up. Guess what it was… The Chicken Dance!!! Next up was hiking time! We journeyed through mud fields, plains, forests, villages and rivers. The students even made an advanced group and a beginners group. Throughout the hiking trip I used a stick that saved my life so many times I lost count. When we went back to the campsite I felt like I had been hiking for 100 000 days. I took off my muddy shoes straight away, put on my sandals and went rappelling. Rappelling was quite easy but hard at the same time. But after my first time I wanted to go again almost immediately.
The busride home was suspiciously quiet. Our parents were waiting for us outside in front of the school building. We all went home and had a great time!
Now that you know how it is to camp, it is your choice whether or not you want to try it out. Best of luck everybody! Goodbye!
