Willkommen daheim

 

Hey everyone,
What an amazing week. We had a school camp the whole week and it started at 8 o'clock on the monday morning. We had a little bus with 20 students in it and our bus trip took 7 hours. So we arrived in Apollo Bay at 3 o'clock. The first thing we did there was meeting our hosts and going to our house which we stayed in for the week. To meet the other hosts we went to their local fish and chip shop called Georges where we all met up for some food. After eating chips we went down to the beach with a couple

 of the Apollo Bay kids.
We dipped our feet into the water as the waves broke and we played on the sand dunes for about an hour. We left the beach at about 6 o'clock and went back to the houses we stayed in and I met the sister and mother of my host. My host's name was Sayuri and she was from Sri Lanka and I later found out her father was still working in Sri Lanka. She also told me that she moved to Australia 2 years ago. The family was really nice and we were sitting in the living room and were talking about my and their time in Australia. We had

dinner and I found out that my host mum is an amazing cook. I went to bed early that day because I was so tired from the long trip with the bus. On the next morning i had to wake up at 7 o'clock and we had toast for breakfast after this we packed our stuff for the day and had to walk 15 minutes to the school where my group met for going mountain biking. The place that we went to was owned by a man who built a whole heap of mountain bike tracks in his backyard which he had then used as a business. The first thing we did was  getting our helmets and bikes, after that we had to do a safety course to show that we could ride a bike. We then rode up the mountain and

got to the start of our warm up track. They sent us in an order, so we had to be 100 meters apart to go down the mountain and we had to rode some sharp corners and some steep parts.
Once we all got to the bottom we had something to drink and got on a car to take us all the way to the top of the mountain. I was in the front seat of the car and in the back there was like a room were the rest of the group sat. It took about 5 or 10 minutes to get to the top and the track we started on was called Old School. I was one of the last kids who could go down the track. It was a nice landscape around the track, I liked the top part of the mountain because there were no difficult parts to ride and you could ride a little bit faster. My whole group stopped a few of times so we were not getting to go that fast. At the first stop we saw a wild Koala up in the trees and the last kid a guy from my class nearly crashed into me. Near half way down we had an amazing view down on Apollo Bay. After about 30 minutes of riding some difficult parts and tricky corners we were back down and had an

funny picture taken. The last activity I did on Tuesday was surfing at the beach near the surf club. But before we did that we had lunch and I had a ham and cheese sandwich. Afterward I had to get a wetsuit on which was pretty hard because I couldn't find the right size and they were all wet and sandy from the last group that used them. When we all had our wetsuits on we were standing in front of the surf club and Bobby explained to us what we have to do when we were in the water and trying to catch a wave. After that we had to walk on the beach a bit to get the boards from the end of the beach. We were then allowed to go into the water when everyone

had a surfboard. There were some teacher's in the water who were helping us to catch our first wave by pushing us as the wave got closer. I was really proud of myself when I caught my first wave and after this wave I caught over ten more and I was really happy with how good I was at surfing  because it seemed pretty hard. But I also got some face plants into the water. After about two hours in the water I couldn't feel my hands anymore and I was shaking heaps and so I decided to get out of the water. I went back to the surf club where I got changed and my friends made me a tea which helped me feeling a little bit warmer. After nearly one hour I was feeling better and wasn't shaking anymore. After that some of us went to Georges to get some chips and we then went to the playground. Their playground was so cool because they had a zipline and lots of different equipment. After that we went to the beach for a little while then all the boys went to football training with their hosts.

Sayuri and I went back home and we had a nice chat in the living room again after a little while we had dinner and it was really good again. I went to bed early again because I had a hard day. In the next morning we had a nice breakfast we then went down to the surf club and waited there until the others arrived. I had kayaking in the morning so I had to get my wet wetsuit back on again. We went down to the beach and got our kayaks there. Then we had some tips on kayaking in the sea and then we went out in the water where we were following Bec in her kayak and we were able to go our own way back to the other side of the beach. When we were near the beach the teacher told us to catch a wave and we were able to surf on top of the wave to the beach which was great fun. After a while we were going back to the surf club and had lunch I had a nice noodle salad. After lunch everyone on the camp went surfing which was great because Callan, Darcy and I were catching the same waves and it just felt so cool. After a while Darcy had to go because he was going on the bus and Callan and I were having a competition on who could catch the most waves and of course Callan won. But I am still the better surfer :). After surfing we went to get some pizzas to eat on the grass outside the surf club and then we went to the playground again for a little while. Some of us went to the beach to do some bodysurfing but Sayuri and I went back home. At home I was calling Lynne and Liam and told them about my time in Apollo Bay. After that we had dinner and went to bed. In the next morning we woke up to late and had to hurry so that we got to the surf club on time. When we got to the surf club we were told that we were doing an activity called the amazing race. What we had to do was run around Apollo Bay and find and take a photo of these certain things and my favourite one was the photo of us saluting to a soldier. I reckon I ran about 5km around Apollo Bay in the hour and a half. Our group in the end scored 28 out of 36 photos and we came equal 4th. After the amazing race we had lunch and I had another ham and cheese sandwich and then everyone went for a walk up to Mariners Lookout which looked out over Apollo Bay and it was one of the best views I have ever seen. I could see the whole of the bay and the beach which around it and in the distance you could see big cliffs were the Great Ocean Road was and I also found my house. The walk back to the buses took about 10 min and then we drove back to the school were we watched a few videos and looked at a few photos of our time in Apollo Bay. Afterward we went to Callan's hosts house named Cameron and we prepared for the party that we had before we left the day after. The party was really nice and we had a lot fun we were dancing and singing. We also took many pictures and I had a lot of nice chats. The funniest were Jules and Jerry who were two aboriginal boys from the Northern Territory, because I they did not stop smiling and laughing. The next day was the day I feared which was the day we left Apollo Bay to go back home which was another 7 hours. I found very hard to leave all the new friends I had made in Apollo Bay. After I had hugged everyone (twice) I finally got onto the bus and sadly had to wave goodbye. As for the bus trip home we took a detour along the Great Ocean Road which was amazing and we even got to see another koala up in one of the gum trees.
Rebecca