Even I’m starting to lose track of what day we’re at with our ADEC group.

The end is fast approaching for their stay here in Perth and to give them as many splendid experiences as possible we headed down to Kerem Adventure Camp located in Bullsbrook to give them just that.

Kerem Camp Adventure offered a fully catered for event with an array of personal/physical challenges along with specific exercises which encouraged team work and team ethos building within the group.

As soon as we touched down it was time for some morning tea, followed by the first “Low Ropes” activity. If you’ve ever seen a Ninja Warriors obstacle course, than Kerem Camp’s Low ropes activity will look quite familiar to you. The course had various logs, flying foxes, balancing beams, swings and monkey bars for each of the students to challenge themselves with. A group of 3 would support each other through the course (1 challenger + 2 spotters), and then each student would alternate their role until everyone had had a turn at completing the course.

As we had a bit of time until our lunch break, our hosts Tim and his helper Mark (if I remember correctly), started to host time trials of agility and speed for cross sections of the course.

In the end Naser Ashkeili took out the fastest time (15.38 seconds), narrowly beating Ali Khalfan who had posted a (16.29) time earlier, which had stood through 18 tries from other students until it was finally beaten.

After demolishing a very tasty home made fresh hamburger, we headed out for the more team oriented exercises of the day. Tim had the kids participating in team building games which required the utmost trust of their partners; there were a lot of pushing, catching and falling backwards into each other’s embrace which was both hilarious and endearing for the students.

After these activities a lot of the students (still with a lot of energy), par-took in either soccer, volleyball or basketball until it was time for going on a Bush Walk with Kate.

Kate took us around the entire property which had us walking through dense bush-land, swamps and into prime kookaburra and kangaroo territory.

Most of the sites were wonderful to see, and the weather really was fantastic that day.

Once we got back everyone got ready for the colour war. The students were split into teams of 7 and then pitted against each other in a monumental battle of tug-of-war.

The green team dominated the competition, the blue team put up a valiant effort in order to stop them from winning, but in the end, the might of one Zayed Al Ahbabi was too much to conquer.

Tim then commenced the Colour Wars and I stood back as far as possible as to not be caught in it’s mayhem. The students darted, dashed, wrestled and pursued each other to great lengths in order to soak, coat and cover each other from head to toe in a combination of water and chalk inspired fun.

The result left an after math of very colourful students whose expressions matched the colours of their shirts after all was said and done.

After the kids cleaned themselves up it was time for dinner and most importantly ice cream.

With the kids having tired themselves out from their very active day, most sat down to regale their experiences, have casual conversation or play a game of ping pong on the tables that were at the back of the canteen.

Once we’d all had a gut full of food, I thanked Tim and we departed back for civilisation.

The students had a wonderful time, the camp and the experience was met with praise and applause on the bus as head chaperone Mubarak inspired the students to thank the each of the staff members who had supervised them throughout the day.

Gilbert – Chaperone