I ended up in the tent for the night. It wasn’t too bad really. The fresh air was nice. The cold air? Not so much. I was fortunate because one of the other teachers had brought a mat for the tent. Since she was in the dorms, she let me use her mat. I think that definitely helped with the sleep. My teacher counterpart was not so lucky. There was tell of a rock placed squarely in his back for much of the night. I just had random flapping of the sides of the tent in the wind. I know there were also a few times during the night I contemplated my actions should a wild animal make itself known in the camp. I still don’t have many good ideas for that one. Maybe use one of the year 7s as a human shield? That wouldn’t be appropriate, would it………
Now, for me, I am not a camper. My family were not campers. My mom always told me “roughing it” was a hotel with no room service. Not that we didn’t stay in places with no room service, it was just those were considered …. harder, I guess. I suppose when you are traveling with 8 kids though, it may make things easier if you have access to easy food. It was always too expensive for us with my own kids, so we never really used it.
The kids were summoned at around 7 AM to gather for morning exercises. They had a game for them to play with different instructions. They had to listen and follow instructions. The kids seemed to really enjoy this.
The camp was split into two groups. One group would participate in the water sports for the day. The other group would hike the gorge. I chose to go with to the gorge because there would be more students who needed extra support in that group. Not only that, but jumping into the water in 16 C temperatures did not appeal to me in the slightest. It ended up that the HOY joined us as well as the new I&S teacher.
We all headed down to the reservoir to head out to the gorge. We were given a briefing as well as helmets to wear when we were in the rocks. From what I am told, this reservoir is a back up water supply for Hong Kong. Most of the water for Hong Kong comes from China. There was a point during the handover in 1997 where the UK was trying to hang onto Hong Kong. China asked where they would get their water from. They looked at the reservoirs in Hong Kong and realized that there was not enough to sustain the whole country.
We hiked up the rocks. It was quite challenging to navigate the rocks and avoid the water while assisting students to do the same. It was quite enjoyable though. I would have rather hiked barefooted through this. I feel like I would have had an easier time getting though. I will say, the shoes I had just bought two days prior were incredibly solid though quite painful due to being new. I had a massive blister on the back on my ankle. It was definitely doable though.
It took us from about 10 AM to almost 4 PM to hike the gorge. I know a big part of that was we had to go slow for a few of the students. It was a lovely day though to be outside, even if I ended up burned.
We returned to camp where we rearranged the students into their appropriate rooms/tents for the night. The facilitators took their teams to do more activities. I finally got a shower in a warm room. The blister on the back of my foot was pretty icky. I wasn’t going to be wearing shoes for the rest of the week. That is for sure. After dinner, we cooked breadsticks over fires. That was a new one for me. We’ve always done hot dogs or marshmallows. They turned out really well though.
I volunteered to sleep in the tents again for the night. I was too tired to actually pack up my stuff and move to the dorm. I was being lazy.
US Mama In Hong Kong 