Activity:

For the first time this semester we were given the opportunity to experiment with other groups than our own and pass on some of the knowledge we’ve gathered. We would spend the week from Monday until Thursday around the north-western tip of Donevannet, a lake just 30 minutes south of Kristiansand. Groups of roughly 40 students age 17 – 19 would arrive each afternoon and stay in the gapahuks (provided by Midt-Agder Friluftsråd) overnight. The activities for the students in the afternoon and morning were mostly carried over from the plan of last year’s outdoor education students – fire making, orienteering, floor is lava, blindfolded race, shelter building, abseiling, canoeing, rope stretcher, (chicken game). Each activity would be led by groups of two of us. Initially we thought about switching the activities and instructor teams so that everybody would be in charge of each activity once. This idea never caught on though, so we stayed in our teams the entire week and switched activities daily. The evenings were up to the students to organise.

Day One

Activities:

Meeting up at University in front of Spicheren at 9:30 to pick up the required gear for the next week. Martynas and I were in charge of the abseil activity, so we grabbed four helmets, three 30+m ropes, four slings, 8 karabiners and 4 belay plates and off we went. All of our gear for the week had to go in martin’s poor car with five people in it. It’s a miracle we ever got there.

Upon arrival we went on a walk around the area and Len showed us a couple of spots where we could set up the different activities. The wall for the abseil was about 8 meters tall. It was fairly easy to set up the rope for the actual abseil plus a second safety rope at two of the trees at the top. We took Len’s advice to add a quick release mechanism to the abseil rope to avoid having to the rope in case the rope jammed in the belay plate e.g. with long hair. The third rope was a guiding lead for the walk around the wall and up to the top and meant to prevent people from falling off the cliff.

First Martynas or I would abseil while being secured from the bottom by the other to demonstrate the exercise and show how they are meant to sit in the harness and keep their legs perpendicular to the wall. Moreover important to show the students was that they grab both ropes below the belay plate and how to lower themselves down by feeding the ropes through the belay plate at whatever speed they felt comfortable with. The person at the bottom of the wall took care of explaining the correct way of putting on the harnesses and helmets and gave advice to people with long hair. We switched the roles the next day.

Both of us gave our best to encourage the scared and energise the unmotivated either directly or through their fellow group members to foster group cohesion. Meanwhile we ensured that the students were safe at all times. Of course we learned from the each group what could be done better and adjusted bits of the procedure accordingly.

When the groups had finished, we rated the group (1-10) performance on the basis of completion of the task and team spirit. Points were subtracted if the behaviour of group members posed a security risk.

We used the time before the first group of students arrived to set up our own bivy camps for the night and had a nice lunch.

Working with the students was great fun and didn’t feel like work at all. Humorous and creative groups kept us well entertained throughout nearly every session. Moreover, helping students that were afraid of heights to overcome their fear was very rewarding.

After the three groups of that evening we tidied up and joined the others around the campfire by the gapahuks. The students had prepared several games to play that evening and thanks to a couple of people translating for us we could take part as well. I bivied close to the gapahuks that night but I decided to sleep by the seaside the next day to get away from the mosquitos.

Day Two

We started the day after a short breakfast (mass gainer trail mix) with 5 more groups at the abseiling activity and had a lot of fun with the students. At lunchtime Paige presented the total scores of the best teams and awarded the winning team with a prize. After a short feedback meeting of our group we split up and Adam, Martin, Chris and Me took our climbing shoes in the canoes to the opposite side of Donevannet to go look for a boulder by the seaside some of the others had stumbled upon the day before. Instead of taking the direct path we chose to go on a hike to explore the coastline which took us past two more small gapahuks, a beautiful small beach to go swimming and a small stretch of grass by the sea to bivy on. By the time we arrived at the small bay with the boulder the others had already gone over to sunbathing. We played around the boulders there for a fair bit until it was time to head back to the camp.

This time Martynas and I would be in charge of the fire making activity in which the group had to prepare a cup of tea for us by boiling water in a kettle over their self-made fire. In order to start the fire they would have to use the knife and flint in a way we demonstrated with a small ball of dry straw. We had a selection of the different kinds of tinder and wood they should look for and advised them to pick dead and dry wood of different sizes for their fire. Moreover we introduced them to five kinds of fire structures for different situations – the cook fire, counselling fire, star fire, pyramid fire and tepee fire. Out of these most groups went for a cook fire-like structure if their pile followed any clear structure at all. More creativity could be observed with solutions for placing the kettle over the fire. The first tripod we saw burned through the rope and dropped the kettle into the fire after approximately 2 minutes. It was substituted with a simple stick held by one of the group members. Others fixed the kettle on a long stick going across the fire or tried to wedge the stick between the rocks around the fire. In this exercise we saw an awful lot of social loafing within many of the groups. Some group members made no effort to contribute to any part of the exercise at all. Again we tried hard to get the students interested and make the activity fun which didn’t work quite as well as with the abseil activity but still okay. Some groups however did a tremendous job at finding solutions and managed to divide the tasks so that all members of the group were included in the exercise. The second evening was a lot calmer than the first on as the students did not prepare any games for the evening, therefore Martin and I left after dinner and paddled across to the seaside to spend the night in the gapahuk there.

Day Three

After a very restorative night of sleep and a breakfast of oatmeal, nuts, apples and bananas it was time to get back to the camp and the fire starting activity until noon. This time however the groups showed a lot more interest about the topic on average. Not only did most of them manage to make us a cup of hot tea but we were also served a second breakfast in the form of pancakes. Life was good that morning.

When the winning team was awarded we finished our lunch and after watching the knife throwing spectacle by the gapahuks, Martin and me grabbed our climbing gear and got on our way to the Tangwall area where we spend the rest of our lunch break.

According to the rotation system Martynas and I would have had nothing to do for the rest of our time at camp that day, so we made a deal to swap with the team that should have been in charge of the abseil activity. Therefore we spend the afternoon at our favourite activity of them all and made sure everyone was having a good time and while being safe – increasing the perceived risk while keeping the real risk as low as possible in order to achieve the maximum learning effect.

When we were finished with that I had spicy bulgur salad, blomkål soup, dansk brød with tuna. Hot dogs for dessert – with love from Adrian – Thanks! After a relaxed evening around the campfire, Adrian and I left for the seaside to sleep on a small patch of grass on an otherwise rocky island, perfectly sheltered from the wind behind a rock wall.

Day Three

After waking up surrounded by the sea we made our way back to the camp after breakfast. For the last time this week Martynas and I ensured people took the shortest way down from the rock we had gotten so used to. After the last group was done with time to spare we asked them what they thought of the activities we had prepared for them and the vast majority seemed to be quite happy with our work that week. Apparently Len had gotten similar feedback from the teachers and groups he had talked to that week. Nice to hear that the students had as much fun as we did. All in all the week was a great experience and the organisation worked flawlessly – thanks Paige and Len!

Now it was time to pack up, head back to Kristiansand and enjoy the sun playing volleyball.