On my last day at camp, 22nd August 2006, continuing onto the week in New York:

We woke up at 6am to try to make buttermilk pancakes using no oil – they were a disaster, and the strawberries were mouldy, but it was the thought for fox that counted I guess. After saying goodbye to fox, star (telling her to STAY ALIVE – she is trekking across America and I know she will try to save money in any way she can, including not eating well and sleeping in dodgy hostels,) I set about the task of packing – or procrastinating!! I took a backpack from the trip shed – they were donated by REI anyway, they have too many, and clover agreed that we worked hard enough – its not like I didn’t ask first, but they just didn’t agree. After doing my laundry and packing, I got picked up at 5pm, saying goodbye to camp, and we headed into seattle. I had asked to go to REI to look at backpacks, which was my alibi – and I bought socks instead, saying the backpacks were too expensive. So I technically got a pack and a pair of socks for about $10!!!

Kitty and I were dropped off at the airport at 7pm, and we checked our bags in, and found our way through the screening etc… We are not allowed to carry water or any liquids, but we can have hand luggage now, which is good. We did a bit of window shopping - there is the coolest shop that is only in seattle, called ‘fireworks’, with all random house knick knacks, like funky toasters and salad servers, and coffee table books like “why do we fart?”. I wanted to buy it for jess flood, but didn’t want to spend the money –sorry jess ☺

We hung around the airport until 11pm, when we boarded. I sat behind a blind, deaf and dumb man – who had a real stubborn personality. He was led to his seat and the attendant said “sir, this is your seat.” But the man refused to sit down until he was certain. He produced a mini flashlight from his top pocket and shone it on the seat numbers, and ran his finger along the print, even though there was no Braille. He was also mumbling to himself, incomprehensively of course. The attendant started to get short with him, saying “sir we are due to take-off, please take your seat.” He hoisted his pack in the overhand luggage, nearly missing and coming down ontop of me. Then he grunted and snored the whole flight. At least someone could get to sleep – I had Li’l lewis with me, my tilly gift from Dandy: a plane pillow with green legs and flappy eyes. Ah red eye flights!! We arrived in Chicago at 4am, and wandered around for a little while. I noticed the difference in accents – the accents from the Film Chicago actually aren’t much different from the reality – to my annoyance.

Kitty had dinner (strange body clock), and we boarded our next flight for New York, arriving at 9:30am. I was so tired that I kept drifting off to sleep while walking to collect our luggage. We bought a metro ticket ($24 for all public transport for 7 days, which is the best deal ever!!) and found a bus that would take us to our hostel. It took us through Harlem – and I now know why everyone says to stay away from it – its filled with black guys hanging around, and a lot of the shops are boarded up. We went past Columbia university, and turned onto Broadway Avenue. We found our hostel, HI New York, parallel to Broadway. It looks really funky in the foyer, with marilyn Monroe printed on the wall at reception, and cool seats etc…, but the hostel itself is extremely huge and unfriendly. No-one talks to each other, and the room has 12 beds – and there is no oxygen in there. There are only a few bathrooms, in the silliest of places. And the staff here are so horrible – when I checked in they talked to us like we were soldiers: “ID, membership card and payment please.”

We had to leave our luggage in the lockers before we could check in at 4pm, though, and we had some issues fitting my bag in. I met an Australian from the Gold Coast – I noticed the annoying twangy accent straight away. We then took a walk to central park, to plan our itinerary and have a sleep. There is so much to do and so little time!!!

We then did some grocery shopping in a Mexican grocery store, where we stood our like sore thumbs. The cashier looked at us like we were aliens and shouldn’t have been there. It was really cheap though – two days of food for $5!!

After we checked in, we put our bags in the rooms and headed out for some downtown exploring. We rode the subway down toward the world trade centre. Its still a mess there, and they have put up a memorial of course, but they are building a huge sky scraper called the “freedom tower.” It perplexes me why they should build another building in the same spot – why not put a park or something, which would be less of a terrorist target.

A lot of the surrounding buildings still show the damage – with the ceilings having large cracks and a few holes and wires hanging down. We took a walk along the shoreline, where they filmed the last scene of MIB, where he sits on the bench looking out at the city skyline. We watched the trapeze swingers, and kept walking and I got my first glimpse of the statue of liberty. Sunset over the sky line was amazing. We found our way back and went to bed. Considering I only got about 4 hours sleep the last night of camp, I had been awake for 52 hours!!!! Argh I was almost hallucinating!!

New York has this energy: the people are so diverse, the neighbourhoods each have their own oddities, such a culture, and so many interesting people. You never know what to expect. Like tonight, when we were in the tiny hostel kitchen making our instant noodles, this Indian lady came up to next to me waiting for the microwave. Out of the blue she asked me where I was from, and I in turn asked her where she was from. She dove into this life story of how she has lived in manhattan for 15 years.

“I want to return to Switzerland… But I am waiting to be married to my… I was about to say Hollandish…dutch boyfriend,” she said in an airy indian accent, her voice wavering up and down as she tilted her head back and forth.

“Ever since I lost my friends, and they lost their friends, in September 11, I have been trying to rebuild my life. But its hard keeping a job and somewhere to live, because New York is all about the money. They don’t care for the people, they are all just Shmuks. “I have a good friend, Charlotte, who owns a hotel, and she is financing my stay here. I have been here for a year now, and I am just waiting for my boyfriend to come so I can get away from this miserable place. I have become friends with a man in security, who barely gets three hours of sleep a night, and works like a dog here. Ever since they changed management…”
She looked down at her instant rice, and frowned, because the hostel didn’t have the means to provide cutlery.

“That is why I want to return to Switzerland – to work in the Dutch Bank. Apparently I just do not make the cut for Wall Street anymore, but I am too qualified for anything else, which is why I have become a pastor.”
She waited for a reaction from me. I wanted to get away from her, because this conversation was getting more uncomfortable and weird by the second; but at the same time I felt drawn to what she was saying.

“I have chosen a path where I can heal the homeless, the homosexuals, the bisexuals… I have found my calling. I cannot work for other people any more, which is why I started my own business. My manager is Jesus Christ and I will only serve Him.” I forced back a horrified smile.

“The other day I felt the Holy spirit upon me. God is healing these people through me, and its just such an awesome, mind-blowing experience.”
At this point Kitty, Me and the indian woman were joined by an old woman, who entered saying “May I sit with you, such a happy bunch,” as she gingerly placed her instant pasta on the table.
The indian woman continued her conversation: “But that is the way of the world, money makes the world go round, and things are going from bad to worse. But what goes around comes around. Humans were created in the image of God, and we are doing our best to destroy ourselves.” The old lady chipped in: “that’s what I have always thought – humans are the virus, and once the virus is eliminated, the world will become a better place.” She paused, and with a sudden change of tone, exclaimed: “oh my what a pleasant topic of conversation. I was obviously being ironic with my first comment!”

Kitty was giving me the can-we-go-now look, and so we tried to worm our way out of conversation. “I am going to use the internet now, do you know if there is wifi here?” I should have known better: I opened up a new topic about money and the thieving management who ask $6/hour or $10/day wifi.”

So I tried again, asking the old lady what brought her here. She has been travelling ever since she retired, visiting Canada, and before that staying in Ecuador for 5 months. After America, she plans to go to New Zealand, then Australia, she told me.

The indian lady piped in “I once heard the most beautiful CD from Australia – Hillsong; have you heard of them?” The old lady then said matter-of-factly: “I don’t believe in god, or Jesus or miracles, I don’t believe in any of that bullshit.”

I got up and said “I need a shower. Nice meeting you two.” I couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of the conversation – the fact that she was complaining about money and management and corporations, and here she was unknowingly endorsing one of the biggest corporations that exploits religion itself!!!

__

On the Wednesday I was still really tired, but we had to make the most of being here!! We took a bus down broadway (the upper side – not that interesting), to Columbus Circle, where we started our walk around central park. Kitty told me that her friend visited the park and got lost, not emerging until 12 hours later!! I can see why. We were walking across Sheep Meadow and saw a Madonna look alike walking a dog and wearing expensive clothes. We rode on a 98 year old famous carousel, then continued looking around. We went down Literary avenue, to the famous fountain with the angels, by the lake with the rowboats. Then we went across the famous bow bridge, and saw the Dakota building where John Lennon lived. We were going to see a free Shakespeare Play at the delacorte theatre, but the line was over a kilometre long, I couldn’t believe it!!! We walked across the great lawn, the one in all the movies of course, and then headed to the Metropolitan museum of art. OH my god, I couldn’t believe how many famous works were there!!

This will make the art students jealous – I’ve seen:

Warhol, Braque, Matisse, Picasso, degas, chegall, cezanne, dali, over a hundred Rembrandt, titan, raphael, the famous ‘thinker’ statue, Renoir, monet, delacroix, willem de kooning, Jackson Pollock, van gogh, and the water lilies and iruses.

Hmmm, a man just sat by me and placed a paper towel on the seat, the table where his food was etc…

It tipped down coming out of the museum. We finally got back to the hostel, after going past a black gang at the basketball court, which was kind of scary – again we stuck out like a sore thumb.

On Thursday, we didn’t stop walking for 9 hours. We caught a subway to Central park to see John Lennons’ memorial, then caught another subway down to Times Square. And it hit us. Midtown NY – broadway avenue, with the neon signs and electronic billboards running down the sides of buildings, lines of yellow taxis, people honking their horns, broadway shows advertised everywhere, surges of people, yellow traffic lights, the whole excitement of it just blows you away. We did some souvenir shopping (I love NY shirts everywhere). We continued walking around, and found the famous Chrysler Building, visited the central railway station, the Rockefeller centre (NBC studios where they film friends, seinfeld, fear factor, the biggest loser etc…) Then we made our way over to the UN complex, and saw an amazing photo voice exhibition, with pictures of developing nations and the infiltration of the western world. It was scary seeing the photos of Vietnam – but I think it will be an eye-opening experience to say the least. We then walked to the Museum of Modern Art, and OH MY GOD!!!! Everywhwere I looked I found famous works:

Salvador Dali: the persistence of memory!!!
Van Gogh: Starry Night,
Mattise: dancer
Andy Warhol: marilyn, campbells soup cans
A whole gallery of Picasso including Les Demoiselles D’Avignon
A whole gallery of Pollock!!
Marcel Duchamp: bottle rack, Fountain (the urinal), LHOOQ, and the dadaist bicycle wheel on the stool. I was COMPLETELY blown away!!

It took us four subways to get back – we got a bit lost. My feet have never hurt this much in my life – sightseeing is hard work man!!!!

Camp Week 8: MY BEST WEEK OF CAMP EVER!! Backpackers with Clover and only 3 14 year old girls!! (Hike up Mt Adams, to 9000 feet, the second highest po

I was a bit worried about being the counsellor of such older girls – and for the first half an hour I felt a bit intimidated by them, but by the end of the week I had made really good friends with them, and could talk to them like any of my usual friends, which was how mature these girls were. After a quick swim check, dinner, dehydrating some fruit, and campfire, we got stuck into packing for our trip to Mount Adams, the second highest point in Washington state. Clover, Healthy and I slept outside because smelly toto is my UL and she has been living in cielo 2 for most of the summer and everything reeks.

We left on Monday morning, piling into a van, with Clover driving. The drive took 9 hours. The car has a DVD player for those in the back seat, but I sat in the front to keep clover company, meaning that we had to endure just listening to 4 movies on the way there. After stopping at safeway so the girls could buy whole peppers (capsicums) to snack on (Wtf?,) we stopped for lunch at a fish hatchery and the girls (iron women) went swimming in icy snow melted water. My excuse was that I am australian and I am used to hot tropical waters.

In goes Chicago into the DVD player, and clover and I listen to corny Chicago accents and annoying music for 3 hours, while following a never-ending road that skirted the entire cascade mountain range. So we relieved ourselves with some dixie chicks. Bahaa. Clover was about to say “Joey, you need to take over driving before I kill myself”, when Mount adams came into view. A giant snowy mountain, like we had just run head into the swiss alps. That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, until that point.

I got really excited to see snow, and couldn’t wait to start walking, but we had no idea where to walk, and went to the ranger station, being just 15 minutes late, and the ranger PUSHED us out of the building as if she was going to pull a gun on us otherwise. We found an entrance to the national park and clover had me drive. It was the weirdest thing driving on the right side and having the steering wheel on the left. I didn’t do too badly, I thought. Well, I am alive at least. Not to mention the road was really bumpy. We found a campsite by a shallow lake, with mount adams in the background. We cooked on our stove (the weirdest camping stove ever – it set the stones on fire,) by the lake, while the girls went for yet another swim in their sports bras (our signature soon became the ‘sports bras drying on our backpacks.) We had falafel and and cous cous – trust clover to cook gourmet meals on a trip – she’s amazing.

We met up with the rangers who gave us some nice topographic maps – and we found out that we were camping on native American land belonging to the Yakima tribe, which was pretty cool.

The next day we moved the car up to the start of the trail, and finally started walking. We walked up 2000 feet, but it only covered 2 miles. At the first sight of snow we dumped our backpacks and climbed down to a snow patch and had a snowball fight. Then we had lunch by a snowy tundra with purple wildflowers and an icy creek running through. I can’t believe how amazing it was – and I was being paid for it!! We tobogganed using socks for gloves and garbage bags for sleds, until we actually found a rescue sled, which was nice for some peace of mind, clover said.

We continued up as high as the trail would take us, to a similar place as we had lunch, with a lot more snow. This is where we set up camp for the night. We dumped our stuff, had some me-time (me, I tobogganed of course), and we set off to explore. The girls climbed a giant pile of rocks, which was reckless, but clover and I were breaking the rules of counselling for the whole trip from start to finish. We also explored a cool lava tube ice cave, which went down really deep and it was pretty scary. Then we climbed up a huge ‘hill,’ which looked like a 200 metre high pile of rock rubble at a quarry. It was pretty slippery, but we got to the top and looked up to the summit. Then looked down at a lake with bright light blue water and an ice-burg floating in the middle. For a moment I thought I was in Antarctica. Crazy Cassandra wanted to slide down to swim in it – a gradient of a hill being about 80 degrees!!!

We had this wonderful plan to sleep out under the stars because it would be so clear, but by 7:30, after a weird dinner of potato soup and chocolate pudding, we were freezing our butts off. We got out the emergency blanket, which we soon discovered only gets you warm when you are in direct sunlight, or when you burn all the energy trying to unravel the damn things!!! We had the bright idea of setting up a tent using the emergency blanket as an extra fly. One of my biggest memories of camp was that night trying to set up the tent, on a snowy mountain ridge, with hands like ice, windy and using rocks to keep the groundsheet down. We were grunting and making these miserable noises, and it was just insane.

I had a terrible sleep though, we were so cold and the ground was so cold. The next day we refused to leave before going Tabogganing, so we whacked on the gloves (socks) and boarded the plush means of snow transportation, ie a garbage bag, and tobogganed for a few hours. The creek had frozen, which was fun to step on. We didn’t get hiking again until lunchtime. It only took us half an hour to descend, clover and I running to keep up with these girls. We took a different trail around the mountain, and stopped at a lake which was as icy as the arctic, for lunch. We laid out our sports bras on the rock to dry (our signature thing to do) after swimming in this glacier lake, with Mount Adams in the distance. It was so cold that I had a brain freeze. We attempted to wash down using the bio-degradable soap, and everyone but me had the guts to wash their hair. After a very messy lunch involving eploding hot chocolate and dripping maple syrup, we set off again, eventually finding a beautiful meadow – not an official camp site though. It was a clearing in the woods, filled with colourful wildflowers, and an icy creek dribbling in zig-zags through it. We set up camp, refusing to sleep under the stars because of the bugs, and started on dinner: pad thai with all the peanut butter that was left (too much!!), and trefoil girl scout cookie cheesecake, which we cooled in the creek (it floated away of course!!). We had a massage chain too, and I got an invigorating massage from clover, which was amazing after carrying a heavy pack.

That night I got the best sleep in a while. We packed up pretty quickly in the morning, and after a literal RUN back to the car (where do these girls get the energy??), we embarked on another long (and eventful) road trip home. Clover couldn’t face driving so I drove for an hour down the twisty bumpy road, most of which was one way, and I nearly side-swiped a trailer coming up the opposite direction. Clover took the driving from there!! We decided to take a detour to the beach, and to the World Kite Museum. We ran down the shorel, through the grey sand which made me appreciate Australia to no end), into the icy surf. It was so exhilarating, and we felt pretty reckless, until we realised we were being dragged out. We had full clothes on, and they were getting pretty heavy. Cassandra was the furthest out, and for a moment she disappeared under the water, which we find out later was to remove her jumper which was weighing her down.

I couldn’t believe how quickly a situation could go from euphoria to panic. I remember clover running into the waves with this giant smile on her face, and saying “I am so happy right now,” and seconds later, her panic-stricken face yelling “Cassandra… Cassandra… come in shore.” After some hard swimming we made our way back up to the beach, the reality of the situation and the possible consequences dawning on us.

For the rest of the trip, clover and I were exhausted – a bit of a shock to the system. We had some good conversation going on though, about how americans at camp are lazy and how we’ve become accustomed to being active nomads, and deeper stuff like ambitions. She really inspires me – she’s the only person I can talk to, in America at least, without it being awkward at times, and she just knows what really matters in life – not the technology, but meeting new people, farmers, not the business workers etc… (“ when I was your age, television was called books” – from the movie the kids were watching in the back of the car) American, Australian stereotypes etc… She has the idea that one day the world will turn back on itself, and we will all have to live without technology, and people will realise the importance of farmers.

She told me that she has a lot to learn from me, but I think the same as her. Its sad to realise that realistically we will probably never see each other again, although she is very keen on meeting up with me in Australia and going on a big bike trip, or maybe even living with me, which would be pretty amazing. She is very similar to my friends back home, and would especially get along well with monica and could have some deep conversations with jessf or james.

The radio was weird on the way back – we found a techno channel which was a series of continuous rnb songs, and had silly catchphrases like “move your waistline to the baseline,” and “its fat-free and commercial free.”

We had fun listening to Love Songs with Delyla, particularly a song that went something like “one, you are the one for me, two, oh baby can’t you see….” Clover was dancing behind the wheel and I couldn’t resist video-taping it.

We got back to camp after dark, and apparently smokey was about to send a search party out for us because we were seven hours late, because of our forbidden detour!! Clover found out that her mum was in a car accident on Wednesday, and she’s ok, but the people in the other car (they were the ones speeding), are in a pretty critical condition in hospital, so she is pretty shaken up. After such a good week, this was such a let-down, and clover found out that she had to go home on Saturday.

On Friday we climbed the rock wall for 2 hours, washed the car, (which the kids didn’t even complain about - they were amazing), and then did the tri dock in 25 minutes – I did it in 32, beating my record by 10 minutes, which goes to show how much these kids push me.

It was really depressing being back at camp, going to the lodge and seeing the mass of yellow crockery, the scheduling like flag raising and me-time. All I wanted to do was climb back up that mountain and live there forever.

I expected the last closing camp fire to be really sad, but it just felt surreal. It took me a while to get to sleep that night, because I was dealing with clover leaving the next day - its hard, because you really really get to know someone for 3 months, and suddenly they are gone out of your life.

After the kids left on Saturday we got stuck into cleaning – toto (argh I couldn’t believe I had to clean cielos with her), healthy (who is amazing and made up for toto), and frodo, who is insane but fun – and is the biggest star trek type I have ever met. We had to do a really thorough job, iuncluding sanding off the tie die and the grafitti, and waxing the floors. We passed the time listening to queen.

That evening we went into carnation, to Blakes (the hottest place in carnation is a bloody sandwich shop), then to Tolt McDonald park, by the river, where they bought wine (I actually had some and it wasn’t that bad.) Star and I went swimming in our underwear, and I was initially wearing my flip-flops, but I took them off when one floated away “argh! My thong is floating down the river.” Then I realised I shouldn’t have said that in America!! I must have left my lovely watch there that I have had ever since I was ten ☹ because when star and I went back for it later, it of course wasn’t there. The next day we had to clean the lodge, which was boring, then we had some time to ourselves, before the staff banquet. We had a fantastic dinner of salmon, cous cous, seasoned chicken etc… and presented our final tilly presents. I felt sorry for fox, who got her tilly just M&Ms because she didn’t really know her (we also had to publicly present them). I got Dixie a frog balloon, some aussie merchandise, and some aussie cereals, wrapped in foil to commemorate her “shmur shmur” dance where they dressed up in foil and sang the lullaby song to the kids in jibberish, to get them to sleep. We received our staff books, our flower pots, which we planted, and had some final photos.

Then we headed off to the last ever campfire, which was surreal again – we all really got into the lively songs, then told some funny stories, like the el m’fud story with frodo and strawberry and the coyote through camp and shutterbug locking herself in the lodge to hide after walking along the road at night with no flashlight!! I was trying really hard not to cry when London sang “a pleasure to know you”. And I cried when I hugged my first co, dandy. And with that, camp was officially over.

On Monday, our first day of freedom, I spent the day sorting through my stuff and throwing things out, and sending stuff home. I also got to ring elle and eliza and home, and apparently I have a twang of an accent - and I could really hear the Australian accent - especially you el!!! That night we ‘slept’ in the troop house. We watched some footage of camp on my laptop, and star asked me how much ‘brain’ my computer has, which was funny. Then I hi-jacked her dutch dictionary and had fun trying to pronounce things, my favourite word being “ bevukmits” which means balaclava. It was hilarious. I couldn’t sleep that night because I was nervous and had finally come to the realisation that it was all over and I wouldn’t see a lot of these people again. But I think it was also the anticipation and excitement because I was finally into the big travelling part of my trip – and I am so glad kitty is accompanying me to new york!!!!









“how much brain does your computer have?” - star

week 8: Photos - prepare to be amazed

more photos of my backpacking trip session 7

Week 8: Pathfinders (juniors again), with co-counselors tonks and clover

It was such a relief finding out that I had a co who I could actually stand!! I was put in alder valley again, which is a bummer because It was mozzie ridden after a bit of rain.

This week went incredibly fast, and It was very much out of the loop with normal camp schedule. We were originally supposed to be going on a hiking trip to mount adams – which is in the south of Washington state, but we figured that dragging 13 girls aged 9-11 might have been a bit much. So, after doing a first day of tri-dock and the challenge course, we packed for an overnight at the local national park, by the tolt river, a shallow river with large stones – and great for swimming at night, as we worked out later. I was carrying 16 peoples dinner – including potatoes, and a tent, so my pack was the heaviest I have ever carried, but tonks and clovers’ were too, so I didn’t complain. We picked blackberries on the way, which was pretty neat. We just cooked dinner, and played some games on the oval and let them play in the river, until we put the kids to bed.

Then tonks had this great idea of leaving the girls, who were squished into 3 tents – 13 of them (and the counsellors were pretty squished – clover and tonks and I in a two man tent,) and I possibly got the worst nights sleep I ever have. We went down to the river and, how very unamylike, skinny dipped!! It was awesome though, because the current was very minimal and we just sat there on the stones like axolotls and talked. Lucky we got out when we did though, because someone walked over the suspsension bridge. We were also scared that the kids might get scared and wake up, and find us swimming naked in the river, and steal our clothes, just like on The Parent Trap movie. We came back to the girls cracking up, because none of us had brought towels and we were using a dirty dish cloth, and we had to sleep head to foot to fit us in. it also was so squished in the girls tents that they were hot and we took the flies off, only to put them back on when it started pouring down in the middle of the night.

We woke up and knew we couldn’t walk back in this weather, so while we made egg mcmuffins in hobo pie irons, clover walked all the way back to camp in the rain and picked us up with the van. While we were waiting for her, thegirls decided to give me a ‘makeover ‘ and smoosh blackberries all over me. I felt like I had leprosy or something afterwards!!!

The next day the kids were exhausted so all we did was do canoeing (and they picked me up and pucshed me in the lake), and watch the Princess Diaries, and I had my only shower of the week.

The next day we packed up our bags again, and drove up to snoqalmie forest national park. The road was blocked so we went to rattlesnake lake for lunch. The kids swam, ate a lot, smooshed berries over our faces again, and we all got in a tree which was randomly placed in a lake.

Then we finally got to our hiking spot and started the ascent – which was pretty hard going – but this time we had a n extra tent – clover was carrying four of them!! We went up pretty high - up through the clouds.

We found the ‘camping’ spot at lake talapus, which turned out to have space for one tent, so clover and I went scouting ahead through ‘amazon jungle’ – that’s literally what it looked like. We were wondering how the kids would be able to get through, without going head over heels through the devils club and mud. But they did and we found a pretty good camping spot. I thought It was funny when the kids asked me where the restroom was. I said “the world is your toilet.” Later on, tonks and clover gave ademo on how to do Number 2’s in the woods – using our chocolate pudding dessert leftovers as an example of the u-know-what.

We had to hoist our clothes, rubbish and mess kits in a tree – a technique called ‘bear baging.” That was one of the strangest American camping concepts I have ever learnt – the act of hanging your breakfast ina tree away from bears.

We had a fantastic dinner though- powdered bean soup – but a bit of gas trap in a tent. But that was our only form of heating – the tent was freezing because it was three of us in a fiver man tent (the only one left). Tonks and I ended up sharing the same pillow and spooning because we were so cold!!

And to top it off, we left the kids again and attempted to skinny dip in the lake, but it was so cold that we just sat there naked on a log, looking out at the mountains, and the giant landslide across the lake. Tonks and I left clover with the kids and sat on a rock talking for an hour. It was amazing. It looked like we were camping in the mouth of a volcano. The forest also looked exactly out of hell from ‘tomorrow when the war began’. Just how I pictured it.

In the morning, clover and I woke up and opened the tent to find us camping on the ends of theearth – the lake was entirely covered in mist and you couldn’t see more than a few metres ahead. Tonks strolled by in her bikini aftera refreshing early morning swim, which we found pretty funny, ebcasue we had been so cold that night, and one kid had even come up to our tent saying “I have hypoteherimia” – but she was wearing a mini skirt and no sweatshirt or shoes for god sakes. The kids hadn’t gone to bed until aftger midnight because they were scared of the bears, so we were all pretty tired.

The fog started to clear, slowly revealing the lake. We brought our sleeping bags and mats down to the lake bank and propped ourselves up there to watch the mist dissolve. Another amaxing moment, that makes me realise hwat a different world I am in.

We left at 11am and the walk back was MUCH easier as it was all down hill and we had no food. The kids got back and we did the tri-dock , to their distress, and went to closing campfire, led by the pirate lifeguards, who came in to the campfire on a row boat, from the lake, with a pirate flag, which was amazing.

The kids this time were pretty good, apart from a few disrespectful ones, saying to me “come dog” in the middle of the night. I lost my patience with them by then and told them to shut up. They all mimicked my accent, especially “I reckon” and kept saying “mummy, I lost my jumper, did you know the fox farted in the bird.” I think I am getting a bit of an American accent though, which is scary!!!

OHH!! and ;hawk was fired!! she and turk were caught underage drinking on camp property!! its ok for hawk, who is american, but turk is turkish and policy is that here visa is terminated and she has to be out of the country in 24 hours!!! I knew she was very unhappy this week with co-counselor secret (hawk im talking baout), and i knew she wanted out, but out with a bang she went.

last two photos

mroe photos of sessions 5 and 6

photos of session 5 and 6

rest of session 5 - sorry out of order: -

I couldn’t wait until Saturday, when me, rainbow, frodo and strawberry went to Remlinger Farms ‘amusement park’, which was more of a kiddies under five thing, but we nevertheless had fun – we were like deprived teenagers let loose in a candy store – we waited in line for things like the mini steam train ride, hanging out the back; the flying pumpkins, the spinning barrels (which made me positively sick), the mini roller coaster, the hay jump and the hay maze that we could see over the top of because it was designed for people knee high to a grasshopper. The hay jump was fun because we buried each other and got hay in our underwear. It reminded me of that bit out of ten things I hate about you, where kiera knightly and heath ledger werer attacking each other with paint balls. PS: the whole movie was filmed in seattle and I really wanna go see that place where they had the French lessons under the bridge (the Fremont troll).

Then we went on the trike course and rode it seven times, freaking out the poor guy running the amusement – he called us ‘psychologically challenged’, to which we replied “you would be too if you were trapped in summer camp for months”. But my favourite memory would be us driving a european car (on rails), singing “duck rover” – to freak out the people, and when we came back to the start we were just up to the bit “when you smell like duck feathers you’re always alone.” None of us cared what people thought.

session 6 of camp - MAD

Camp Week 6: MAD: Music Art and Drama with Snooty Co-Counselor London

London is one of the people I really didn’t want to work with at camp, but I guess its all about learning to put up with people you don’t want to know – but her personality is hard to deal with, especially with one of my campers, Trina, who is the oldest in the group, but is very very slow. London keeps bitching to me about Trina, who is frustrating I know, but saying that she is ‘fucking stupid’ behind her back. Trina is twelve, and still carries around a stuffed pony, and plays imaginary games with it – she has the maturity of a six year old. Its also hard because we have a lot of drama, and she always withdraws from the activities. I guess I am just treating it as something for child psychology. Like today I was in a canoe with her, and I asked her how she was getting along with the others and because it makes her uncomfortable to talk about it, she deliberately ignored me and decided to inform me that if we get stuck in a whirlpool we will get wet. The other day she also asked me why we wear bras, even though she was wearing one herself.

The others kids are angels, especially compared to the other weeks – and im thinking that I’ve either had bad luck and had a lot of hard groups, or im an incompetent counsellor, which is how London makes me feel. Its weird because last year I was the dominant counsellor with hawk, and this week I just feel like London completely dominates and then whenever she’s not there, the kids just muck up. Its hard living and working in the same environment. Then I am afraid that every time London goes off she is bitching about how incompetent I am to the others. The worst thing London has said so far to the kids is “come on, be clever. Don’t you know anything about something?” We just have nothing in common – she is into the mini skirts, skin products and socialising – I am into the hiking boots, listening to the kids endless conversations, and am all for the saying “a little bit of dirt never hurt any one.”

I do like the scheduling this week though. The art specialist, healthy’s idea, was to focus all the activities of the week around the lion king, making masks, learning about afriacan animals , and doing a performance of the lion king (the opening scene) at closing campfire. London and I at the beginning both pictured like a broadway musical. Obviously it will be nothing like that, but I think it will be very creative.

I also have Toto as my UL again – which is better than last time, because she has loosened up a bit and doesn’t do evaluations about the days process each night, but she is still controlling and embellishes in her authority a little too much. I will have to do laundry at the end of the week though, because her smell has infiltrated everything.

When I have time off, I would rather spend time alone, writing this, listening to music etc… Music takes me back to the ‘old world,’ and I go to sleep with it on a lot lately, mainly because it takes my mind off things and calms me down, but also so I can’t hear the annoying mozzies buzzing around my ears.

I’m making camp sound really negative. Sure, its hard work, physically but mainly being emotionally draining. But its become a big way of life, and its depressing to think that its nearly over and I won’t be seeing these people ever again. I am really up for going to the Netherlands to see Star in November when she gets back from America.

London started to get really narky in the middle of the week – and completely lost her patience with trina, the slow girl, calling her a ‘fucking bitch’ a lot right behind her back. I can’t believe how little she can realte to the girls.

By the end of the week I had grown quite attached to these girls, but had had enough of London, who I had sensed a lot of tension with. She takes the lead a lot and makes me feel like an incompetent counsellor. Like when one of the girls dropped the salsa into the lake, she said “well hasn’t this night got even worse- I won’t eat dinner without salsa!!” I said “well the girls won’t be that fussy, but if you really want it you can go back to the lodge and get some.” Which she ddin’t do, so she must have listened to me.

Trina has taken to playing with cardboard, instead of the other girls. London keeps calling her insane.

The girls put a hell of a lot of effort into their Lion King performance at campfire. It was nothing like the other performances, because the others were giggling etc during performances. When the music of the circle of life came on and we watched out girls rising up from various spots in the crows with masks and face paint, like animals ,and slowly descending the stairs, I got shivers, and I felt so proud that these were ‘our girls’. Their performance was amazing, apart from rafiki dropping simba on the ground. We got standing ovations all round.

I wanted the girls for the rest of the summer, but not London. On our day off I swum the tri-dock for the second day in a row (its 1.6km straight swimming)!! And we went into carnation and had icecream. Star and I got into a spitting lemonade fight, and we came out of it very sticky and hysterical. Ah memories!! Got back to camp and we made a deal: I cut her hair (pretty well I thought), and she cut mine. VERY short. I look like dad / betty boop!!!!!

Only two weeks left ☹