After checking the percentage chance of rain every hour (possibly every five minutes) during the week before, the panic was over when we arrived in glorious sunshine. I got into a single and started to hesitantly row out from the safety near the shed onto the lake. I firstly thought I’d just head to the middle before getting a call from Tim on the bank to not go so far away (I assume due to the high likeliness of my falling in!), so I made my way to the very impressive 2km course. After bumping into a few buoys on my way in, I calmly splashed my way down to the finish trying to keep up with the other girls. Definitely the most professional course I’ve ever seen – I truly felt the Olympics were only a stroke away!
Had a lovely outing in a double which was more successful than my single (mostly because I wasn’t steering), before heading off to dinner at Nagambie Rowing Club. Had a great catch up with some new rowing buddies till they turned off all the lights which I think was our cue to leave. You know that you’re enjoying it when you don’t realise that everyone else in the pub has left! Back for an early night before an early start (which apparently was a lie in compared to last year!).
Tim helping me rig a single
Had a lovely outing in a double which was more successful than my single (mostly because I wasn’t steering), before heading off to dinner at Nagambie Rowing Club. Had a great catch up with some new rowing buddies till they turned off all the lights which I think was our cue to leave. You know that you’re enjoying it when you don’t realise that everyone else in the pub has left! Back for an early night before an early start (which apparently was a lie in compared to last year!).
Tim helping me rig a single
An impressive eight getting coachingSo 7am Saturday we got up, put some eights together, and got on the water to row up the beautiful Goulburn river. Mixing the crews up I got into another eight going up and down the course, and thanks to Kathy had my first experience lying down in a rowing boat! After munching down on a lovely lunch (thanks Zoay) and probably too much cake, we headed off in a four to take the course with Dave coxing.
Onto Saturday night’s AMAZING bbq and the infamous box biting championships (which I had being getting demonstrations of and tips for, including the importance of footwear choices and not wearing tight trousers, throughout camp). The aim of the game is to pick up a beer box with your teeth, having hopped at least three steps into the middle of a circle, while still standing on one leg. The box would then get slowly smaller being expertly cut by Michael. I was very proud that I made it through the first round but not even Charlotte and Kat could beat the human pretzel, aka Keith. Congratulations! So after a wild game of Exploding Kittens (thanks Amy), it was off for a not so early night but still early in the general scheme of things. Rowing is seriously affecting my body clock!

View of sunrise from our cabin
Huddling round the fire at the bbq
Keith’s winning moves at box biting
Congratulations Keith!
Playing exploding kittens in cabin 42Two outings later we were taking all the boats apart again and packing them all onto the trailers to head back to town. After washing the boats and putting them all away it was off home for the earliest night of the weekend! Overall I am definitely a lot better at rowing, made lots of new friends and got to show off my very blistered hands to my colleagues on Monday (I’m still not sure why I did that – I’m not sure they appreciated it!)
Thank you to everyone who helped organise camp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lucia Denniss