Camp: The New Year

After the exhaustion of the bike hike, the scouts were looking forward to a Plast camp tradition --- the New Year's Eve party. In Australia, Plast camps are usually held from Boxing Day to about Jan. 3rd which allows for a party to ring in the new year. As the camp's theme was The Jungle Book, the idea was you made costumes based on a jungle theme. Mine wasn't quite that, but I'll tell you about it in a second.

Of all the days at camp, only New Year's Eve was hot as I recall. In any event, we spent most of the afternoon at a beach in the nearby town of Airey's Inlet. There was a strong northerly breeze which made the air feel like an oven. It wasn't too bad but after many days in the low to mid 20C's, 37C felt stifling. Still, the beach did us all some good.

On the way down I went with Marko and another guy called Timmy in his 4WD. Marko brought his iPod and we played Men at Work's Land Down Under at least 4 times on the way there. I remember saying that there is no better way to listen to that song than on a dirt track in the bush, riding in a 4WD with a few friends in the middle of the Australian summer. Most of the roads to Airey's were unpaved and Tim likes to really drive his 4WD.

We got to the beach in 1 piece and I spent a few hours wandering around. The scouts were having a great time on their own and we just had to make sure none of the drowned or anything; luckily, none did. We had lunch there and afterwards returned to camp ready for the party.

At the New Year's Eve party, most everyone had a costume on. Some were very elaborate while others, such as mine, were a little more spartan. Because of weight restrictions on the aircraft I kept my costume simple. I didn't do a jungle theme exactly, but I chose a tropical theme which consisted of me in a Hawai'ian shirt and board shorts. It was actually quite comfortable and worked with the overall theme. The new year rung in, we all retired eager for the next day's activities.

I don't remember much of what happened on the 1st except for the evening's activity which was a trivia game designed for all ages. There were questions about animals, places, movie quotes and puzzles all with a jungle theme, except for the last round which was devoted to events at camp. I designed the game with questions for a broad range of ages and even had them vetted by the counsellors of the younger groups. My particular favourite was a round where the teams were asked to put jungle-themed words to the chori of popular songs; it worked out very well and proved very amusing. Except for technical difficulties with the projector and a rather large huntsman spider at one point, the game went very well and was enjoyed by all.

The penultimate day of camp also had a highlight, which was a traditional Ukrainian Christmas variety show called a Yalynka (yah-LYN-kah/"Christmas tree" or "pine"). There were carols sung along with servings of borshch (beet soup) and varenyky (vah-REH-nyh-kyh), potato-stuffed dumplings. Ukrainian-Australians called going carolling "kolading" (sometimes pronouncing it "colliding") as a gerund anglicization of kolyada. The whole event was well attended and people from all over turned up, even Katia and Maria from Melbourne. The acts were all great and I'm sure everyone enjoyed it. From what I understand, this is combination of camp and Yalynka is fairly new but it seems to be working so far. It gets everyone together.

The 3rd was the last of camp and most of it was spent decamping. We took down all the tents and the like and everyone packed up their gear. The closing ceremonies included a defilade and the unveiling of a new mosaic prepared by the parent volunteers at the camp. They'll find a suitable place for it I suppose. After the closing ceremony there were the usual photos of the camp participants. I had a great time at Sokil and I look forward to returning again in 2 years time. I wonder what the scouts will be like in 2 years? I also hope to see my fellow counsellors again and they really were a great bunch.

After the scouts had left, the counsellors got together and finished cleaning up. Normally we would stay for a day to have a winding down party but another group had been accidentally/on purpose/negligently booked in so to avoid any conflicts, we decided to leave and go to a house in Geelong for the post-camp party. I'll mention that in the next post.