From Monday the 28th of May to Friday the 1st of June our international Outdoor education class went with the Norwegian class to spend a week Østre Randøya island just outside of Kristiansand. We met just outside the city and head to take the small ferry over to reach the island. Once we reached the island we went to our cabins groups 3 and 4 in the old hospital and groups 1 and 2 stayed in another old building.
The week was structured so that each group would have 2 activities per day and spend one-night in a survival scenario on one of the smaller near but islands with nothing but the contents of your day packs. My group’s first activity was driving the motor boats. This involved us learning the basics of how to control a boat using a small low power outboard motor. As well as learning the basics of sea rules along with navigation using sea maps and the meaning of the various symbols of the map. Once we where finished at around 4pm our group had free time for the rest of the day which we spent fishing and exploring the island.
On day two our group begun with rowing, this proved to be a much more difficult task than it appeared to be as there were several components involved in to manoeuvre the boat. In my boat there was no one with rowing experience so it was difficult to keep up with the other groups particularly in the more exposed sections of water where we had difficulty manoeuvring the boat. Our groups second activity for day two was basic skills kayaking, this was run by Maike and Johanna and was a much more enjoyable session as Kayaks where much more easily manoeuvrable, so each member was able to paddle much more competently. They taught us about all the basic safety aspects of kayaking such as capsizing and rescues as well as basic techniques of forward paddling and different strokes for steering kayaks. Some of these included the sweep stroke, back wards paddling as well as edging the kayak. After that activities where done for the day we had a few hours of downtime before we had to meet for an island history tour that night. We met Kjetll at 7pm to start the tour looking at various lookout points and places where there where cannons protecting the island during the second world war. Then we went under the mountain which was the most interesting part of the tour as we got to see inside the headquarters and gain insight about the different technology the type of lifestyle the soldiers manning the island would have lived during this period.
Day three began with a kayak tour around the island which was taken by Sam and Abby. Our group had varying levels of competence, so our tour was quite easy and relaxing also, this was quite frustrating for some points as some Norwegian students where to afraid to enter the open ocean despite each of us being competent in swimming. However, it wasn’t so bad as we had such nice weather so we where able to relax and enjoy one another’s company. Our second activity for the day was shallow water biology with Svein. This was one of the most interesting sessions for the entire week we where able to go around collecting items we thought to be interesting from the shallows and brought them together for Svein to explain to the group. He also took us on a short walk to show us various types of edible sea weed, plants and sea urchins in the found in coastal areas.
Day four was the Island survival night for my group. We begun the day with our final organised activity which was deep water biology (snorkelling). I was quite looking forward to this part of the day to see how snorkelling and sea life in Norway compared to that back home in Australia. It was slightly disappointing to snorkel in Norway however still interesting to compare the contrasting environments and gain insight from Svein around the biology of the sea in southern Norway. After we where done with snorkelling we had a few hours to have lunch and prepare for our overnight trip to the Island. Once we where packed and ready we met Svein Rune who gave us our scenario that we where in poor weather conditions and had been forced to spend the night of the island with just the content of our day packs. We where also given a small ration of various vegetables and we had the opportunity to set out fishing nets the night before. He then went through with us how to prepare and set the nets explaining that they were 3-layer net and how they worked to entangle fish. We were then given half an hour to make any last-minute alterations to our overnight kit. We set off for the Island around 4pm again in the row boats and again with little success manoeuvring them. We set the nets and headed to the open rocky section of the island so as to avoid vegetated areas where there were tics and mosquitoes. The first few hours on the Island felt more like a holiday than survival we spent time in the sun swimming, fishing out of the row boats. Eventually when the weather did change we decided to try make the area more comfortable, myself and Aaron collected wood for a small fire whilst the girls begun to prepare the vegetables and the fish we had caught. Once we had cooked and eaten the internationals who where on the Island decided to go and explore to pass the time before sleeping. At around 2am we eventually ran out of things to do so decided to get the fire going again for warmth and fell asleep next to it. A few hours later at around 4.30 I woke to the sound of Sam falling down off a rock almost into the fire. Within 15 minutes we where all up tired and ready to go. We packed up and headed back to the Island collecting the fishing nets on the way back unfortunately we had only caught two flat fish.
When we arrived back on the island we had a few extra hours of sleep and had our final session with Kjetll filleting the fish for our fish soup. As we only had two fish half the group started to make soup to go with the fish. After we where done with the soup we cleaned up the dorms and left the Island half of us paddled back in Kayaks and half took the small ferry back.
The week spent on Østre Randøya was a good opportunity to get a good base in several new skills. However, it would have been nice to do something similar to this early in the semester to get a chance to get to know the Norwegian students better.