NILLUMBIK TERM 4 2024 WEEK 6

Hi everyone, welcome to our week 6 blog!  

Our week started with another gym session at Eltham Leisure Centre. Instructor Brad put together an intense circuit of different exercises including pushups, wall sits and planks! After this short session brad joined the crew on a short bike ride around Eltham, in preparation of our bike camp the next day! We rode on a popular Eltham bike trail, helping students become familiar with the bikes we will be using on the camp and riding through some different tracks!  

After our bike ride we headed off to Edendale Community Farm! Students met Jo who has worked at Edendale farm for many years and would be taking them around the farm! We started off with some maintenance with the chicken coop and refreshing the garden beds around the farm, working in pairs, students used wheelbarrow's to move mulch around and cleaned out the chicken coop! They were then able to have some down time with the baby goats, building them a little obstacle course and getting lots of cuddles!  

On Thursday we set off on our final camp of the program, our bike camp! On this camp we assessed students on things like their organisation skills, packing and unpacking their tents, their attitudes along the bike ride and willingness to help others. 

Staff packed up the bus early and picked up students ready for an exciting day! We headed up to Alexandra which is where we started a 18km bike ride through to Molesworth. Our bus was transported to our camp site for the night while staff and students rode there! We unloaded all the bikes and had a debrief, reflecting on safety, character strengths and allocating leaders for the trail. It was a great challenge given the hot weather but each student pushed through, keeping hydrated and teaching each other about the gears on a bike! We took lots of breaks as needed and stopped to admire the beautiful view around us!  

After our long 18km journey we made it to our campsite for the night, students dug straight into the noodles and playing in the sprinkler to cool down. After some relax time the crew put up their tents and explored the camp site including the footy oval and playground! We allocated chefs for dinner and breakfast and got started on preparing chicken and burgers! After some more chill time we got a fire started and had some dessert, we did some reflecting by the fire on students chosen character strength for the bike ride, hearing a short speech from everyone about how they feel they used their character strength and how they can take this back into school. We finished the night off doing some stargazing and looking out for satellites and shooting stars before bed!  

We started our final day off bright and early with students getting up at 6am! After a great breakfast cooked up by Declan and Coda, we packed up our things and prepared for our final 16km ride up to Yea. A steady 8km uphill ride was challenging but was worth it once we got to go downhill! Students were super supportive of others and rode together as a group most of the way, Along the way we saw many Cows and Horses and rode through the extremely dark Cheviot Tunnel! Once reaching the end we enjoyed a great lunch prepared by Cooper! 

Once reaching Collingwood, students helped with a gear pack up and getting all the bikes off the trailer before heading back to Collingwood station!