Blue Mountains-Learning in Outdoor Education in Australia

After paying a recent weakened-long visit to one of Australia’s most spectacular icons, I now feel as though I’ve developed a full taste of the country’s unconditional beauty. Between the fresh air, mountain-ranged scenery, strenuous hikes and challenges, and bonding by the campfire, this trip was an incredible experience and the most interesting weekend I’ve had in the land Down Under!

Day one (with Nikki):

After a night of zero sleep (due to my suite-mates getting a little crazy), my roommate Brittany and I set off for the long journey (across the street) to Central Station to catch the the two hour train ride to Katoomba. It was a little chilly and the weather wasn’t great, but we were all dressed accordingly and had high hopes for the day. We would soon find out that no matter what the weather was like, the mountains offered a sense of peace and beauty that was pleasing to the eye the entire way through the trails.

Throughout the trip, we were offered to participate in a series of challenges at different points along the trail. Out first challenge was the best! We were told to crawl through a tunnel that looked almost impossible to fit a normal-sized body through.

I compared my caving experience to some challenges I face in everyday life. Nikki told us that when we started to panic in the hole, all we had to do was take a deep breath and let our body’s slowly shrink in size, allowing us to continue through the cave. Sometimes you just have to stop, relax, and take a deep breath before continuing an obstacle. May it be a difficult homework assignment or a skydive from 15,000 feet up; relaxation is your best bet at reaching success.

It was interesting reading all of the signs about the history of the train tracks and different kinds of plants and animals. At one point along the trail when I decided to tame my growling stomach, a bold bird swooped down from right above my head and landed near my feet, begging for some of my granola bar. I fed it like a dog catching a biscuit mid-air.

If there had to be a gloomy day, I’m glad it was the first because I felt as though we were mainly in the woods, not able to see much of the scenery. That is, until we reached the 1000 steps and were offered a second challenge.

About five members of our group took on the task of holding water in their mouths the entire climb to the top, where they would then have to swallow what was left in their mouths. Three of them made it to the top without swallowing (or spitting out) the water, however by that time there was mainly spit left in their mouths. I was glad to have the excuse of having a stuffy nose….

The Three Sisters

The rest of the day consisted of practicing our Bulgarian Folk dancing on the lookout platform area for the Three Sisters, busing it to the grocery store to gather food for the weekend, and gathering around the campfire to play our first round of games! Unfortunately, my first stumble of the weekend wasn’t even along the trail; the games became so competitive that I tripped over a log while running to get the last available chair during our “newspaper slap” game. At least I got my most embarrassing part of the trip over with on the first day! My favorite part of the night was when all the students from different countries around the world sang their national anthem together. Some students who were the only one’s from their country even sang by themselves. I felt this was the start of a major intercultural connection between all of us, and it gave us all a piece of each other’s nationalities and a taste of where we came from. I didn’t think I was going to last the full night of bonding due to the exhaustion I’d felt all day, but the activities were so much fun that I even stayed around the fire until Ian shooed us all off to bed.

                         
                             Our first family dinner                      First fire-building attempt to heat up our cabin                           

Day 2 (with Joel):

During this eight-hour hiking period, we were faced with a number of challenges that ranged from using our brains to many exhausting experiences of climbing up and down thousands of feet. We started off the day by poorly performing the Bulgarian Folk Dance while Ian eagerly recorded, and spent some time reviewing compass navigation skills which we used throughout the trail.

Amazingly, the fog permanently cleared for our dance!

Soon after we took off, I felt as if I were going to spot a dinosaur at any minute; it felt like we were starring in the movie Jurassic Park.

Our group was on the fast side, so we decided to take a few stops and tell each other how we were feeling. Some of us were a little too open…

My second fall of the weekend happened when we were climbing down extreme rocks. The rain that poured earlier that morning didn’t do me any good, and the grip on the bottom of my hiking boots was nonexistent. I slipped and boomed down right on my butt while trying to inch down a large boulder. With my luck at this point I wasn’t at all surprised!

One of my favorite parts of the day was just being able to soak up the sun while we were snacking by a river. I hadn’t had a moment since my ‘American summer’ to lay out and bathe in the sun, thinking about nothing else except the amazing blanket of the sun’s rays. I even dozed off for a few minutes, which Ian caught on camera.

Just a little Aboriginal face art thanks from the ash of Turpentine trees

One of my cabin mates, crazy Katie decided to go for a swim during our lunch stop…..

(video of Katie swimming)

Every group needs a person like Katie. She livened up every inch of our walk with her enthusiasm and entertaining camp stories. I loved having her in my group! She was so talkative that during the strenuous periods when none of us could breathe; we were wondering how she still had a pulse.

We spent the rest of the day huffing and puffing up the hills, seeing an amazing waterfall that allowed us to see the distance we had yet to climb (we had to get to the top of the waterfall), and many tricky games along the way.

At one point, Joel explained to us how he was ‘abducted by aliens’ in Nevada during his time in the U.S, and that he learned their numerical language. He continuously dropped three sticks on top of each other,  and each time the sticks fell, they represented a number. We only discovered how the game worked during Outdoor Education lecture the following Tuesday, but the technique showed me that many things are not nearly as complicated at they seem. Sometimes just being in the moment, taking in your surroundings and focusing on the present can give you so much more than getting lost in your own thoughts.

We were exposed to the beautiful Blue Mountains sunset while hiking up the edge of the rocks towards the end of our second day journey. It was a bummer that it was dark by the time we reached the top, but the breathtaking views took my mind off the mud in my shoes and the lack of air in my lungs throughout the duration of the climb (and also allowed us breaks to stop and take pictures). :)

I enjoyed watching students take up Ian’s challenge of making a fire from scratch. One of them did a pretty good job!

The second night of the campfire forced our groups to get in touch with each other on a more personal level. The game ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ was interesting in that we were able to hear some of the life-stories of our group members. For example, we learned that Danielle Rouix’s father performed surgery on her one time when there was food caught in her throat, which I thought was awesome!

Day 3 (with Ian):

On the last day, there was no doubt that the nature was on our side. It was a gorgeous day for the gorgeous views in which we were exposed. I loved the diversity we saw throughout the day, in that the trail ranged from ducking under dripping rocks to standing on the side of a cliff overlooking thousands of trees and mountain ranges.

I enjoyed the fact that Ian challenged us to locate plants we had learned about over the course of the weekend, and I learned the names of a variety of plants that I had seen, but not actually paid attention too.

Tree Fern

Ian showing us how to spot a Mountain Devil

We also connected with our group by chatting during our breaks and pairing up with people we had never spoken too. I loved learning where other students came from, their culture, and how their experiences differed from mine; something I wouldn’t usually have the opportunity to hear back at my school in the states. The diversity in our Outdoor Education class was remarkable.

Holly, Ian's 12-year-old daughter, was the energizer of our group today. We were trekking along the path playing alphabet games and blabbing about different parts of the trail. She was like a mini Ian. I wish she was in our group all three days!

One of the scary parts of the day was when we shuffled through the narrow alley way of two boulders. the higher up you were, the narrower the space was, and since I'm so tall I felt panicked when my head got stuck. I over came this edgework moment by first screaming, and then taking a deep breath so I could duck a little lower and better shuffle my way through the rest of the way.

Indulging myself into the freezing waters of Wentworth Falls was the farthest I’ve been from my comfort zone the entire trip. I have been in some pretty cold waters, but this little pond made my legs go numb in less than 20 seconds. I wasn’t even cold when I got out because I couldn’t feel anything! Sometimes you have to push yourself past limits (often hurtful limits) so achieve some type of satisfaction. I didn’t necessarily want to jump in the water beforehand (considering I had goose bumps before going in the water), but I was sure glad I did it. The more exciting adventures I involved myself in, the more I took away from the weekend.

Me, Brittany, Katie and Holly freezing our butts off

This weekend offered our class a variety of ways to interact with new people, the nature, ourselves, and ultimately took us places we would not have gone otherwise.  The fact that I was encouraged to journal and blog everything I had done and learned over the course of the semester allowed me to form opinions and see things through many points of view. You don't learn from experience, you learn from reflecting on your experience, and we sure have done a lot of reflecting! The experiential tasks I was able to learn from and the amazing nature I was exposed to during this course has given me a variety of life-lessons. My most valuable one is that it is always best to let the mountains speak for themselves. Our bodies can touch, smell, see and hear, and if we allow it, those senses are all we need to understand the positive impact that nature has on us.