Bellingen EYE

Junior EYE camp to Mt Hyland nature reserve.

The first ever Junior EYE camp was a great success – full of fun survival skills. We learned awesome knowledge about nature and its gifts.

The first day started with a Welcome to Country by a Gumbaynggirr man, Mark Flanders. He taught amazing aboriginal skills and he showed us the tools his people have been using for ages.
Then we went on a bush walk with Andrew Turbill and Matt Forde – they told us all about tracking animals and their tracks.

After a delicious morning tea we learnt the most important tools we would take away from our camp: owl eyes, roo ears and fox walking. With all those tools still in mind we did an activity to test them all out.

Then there were the fantastic sit spots. If you haven’t heard what they are, they are where you go somewhere in the bush and sit in a quiet spot, just you and Mother Nature.

After lunch Andrew gave us a talk on climate change. We all learnt heaps. We walked out of that room in a totally different headspace.

Then after a fantastic dinner we all got blindfolded and got put in a kind of caterpillar and got led around by our leader and then we got left in the darkness. We had to follow the sound of the drum to make our way to the bonfire.

The next morning we got up and did one of the most important activities (also one of the most fun), the string line walk. What happens is you get blindfolded and sort of have to walk through the bush with only a piece of twine to lead the way.

We had a discussion about what jEYE (junior EYE) will be and we worked heaps out.

After lunch we had what everybody had been waiting for, the camouflage exercise. We all got really dirty and then divided into tribes and got given missions that we had to complete. Not all the tribes finished their missions but everyone had a great time.

On the whole it was a great camp and we advise anyone reading this to go on the next EYE or jEYE camp.

Report by:
Lior and Daniel

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