Our MOGO Camp Recount

6S are in the process of writing a recount of the various activities that were part of our Old MOGO Town experience last week.

As we develop this recount, this page will be updated and we will include photos and pictures to illustrate our stories. Feel free to return to this page to see how we are progressing.

(As this page is updated, 6S will be helping each other to improve their writing, punctuation, spelling etc.  -  it is a 'work in progress')

 

6S Go Camp Crazy

 

Let's Get Started:

OLD MOGO TOWN: A place where people became wealthy and is now a tourist destination.
 

Stage 3  classes travelled to Mogo Town, about 4 hours from Mt Annan on the South Coast near Batemans
Bay, to learn about the 1850's Gold Rush.

These are the activities that the students engaged in. Keep reading to find out about our Camp experiences. Hopefully you will get to feel, at least a little bit, as though you were there with us.

Stephanie, Julien, Michael

Getting There:

Everyone arrived at school at approximately 6 o'clock, ready to begin our journey. As we were loading our bags into the buses' storage compartments, we could see smoke coming from the back of one of the buses. The smell was awful. We found out later that the rear brakes were not working properly.

Our bus was not able to head off so the bags were unpacked ready for the replacement bus. The other bus had already gone, so there were 53 of us plus 2 teachers left waiting at school. A couple of hours later, students from other stages of the school and teachers started to arrive at school. We waited for 3 and a half hours until the replacement bus came. Finally! The bus arrived and we all jumped on with our luggage. We passed many beaches, such as Kiama. It was a very long ride to Old Mogo Town but we eventually got there.

The bus driver was unhappy because he had to pick up a lot of rubbish that we had left behind on the bus. (I think Mr Sales and Mr Brownlee picked it up - there wasn't really much at all).  After that long journey to Mogo we were told we were allowed to have our lunch. We were all very hungry.

 

Ben, Braydon

Gold Panning: 

 On the 1st day at Mogo Town we went gold panning! It was so much fun but it was hard work too! We had a murky barrel of water filled with rocks, dirt, sand, pebbles and small specks of alluvial gold.

We used a plastic pan to scoop the gold, dirt and rocksall of these things up into it. Some used a shovel to get it off the bottom of the deeper tank and put it in the pan. Then we needed to dunk our pan into the water and shake it. This brought the lighter things to the top and the heavy gold sank to the bottom. We did this until we had about 5mm of silt  in the bottom of our pan. After that you had to sort through the small rubble to try and find tiny specks of gold! The gold was quite common but when it came to spotting it, we missed it most of the time. Most people only found 3 specks of gold which wasn't very valuable. I know of some people who were thinking of selling their gold. Well, I guess they can forget about that plan!


When you find the gold you put it on your  dryfinger. After that you open a little jar filled with water and put the speck of gold in it. If it is real gold then it should sink to the bottom because gold is heavy. Almost everyone found gold, which was really exciting! Everyone loved having a go even though some of their pants got muddy!

Grace, Laura

Mining Town Tour:

When we first got to the gold rush colony in Mogo, we went on the mining town tour. Corey, our tour guide, first took us to the Quartz Crusher. Corey turned on the Quartz Crusher and it was really loud. The Quartz was crushed up by 5-10 metal sticks then came out the other side as dust, so you can clearly see the gold.

The buildings he took us to were the: hotel, pub, medical centre, jail, butcher, blacksmith, bank, post office, barber/dentist and the outhouse but there were many more. These buildings are/were made out of bark and sticks.

 The people on the mines had to make tents and houses out of bark and wood, but as for the police station, that was made out of crushed oyster shells so it will look stronger to show POWER!! Corey also took us into a mining tunnel which was used in the TV show Camp Orange as the tunnel of doom. It was really dark in there but luckily there was lights in there. Deep in, there were still some of the tools the miners used in the 1800's. We really enjoyed our lovely tour with our great tour guide, Corey.

Crystal, Natasha

School in the 1850's:

 When we went to Mogo we learnt how children spent their days at school. The students had their classes in a local church. In the church/school they had two sides; one for  the girls and one for the boys. They were never allowed to sit together or talk to each other.

 

Before students entered the church they had to curtsy or bow to the teacher. The girls were allowed to wear hats in the church but the boys weren't. The teacher had six pupil teachers to help him or her out. Back then students didn't have pencil cases full of textas, pens and pencils the teacher always provided stationery for them.

In the 1850s, the main form of punishment was the cane. The cane was a long bamboo stick that you got hit with if you were misbehaving.

At Mogo, we had a lot of fun learning about school in the 1850s.

Ally, Brooke

Aboriginal Culture:

During the second day at Old Mogo Town, we met an Aboriginal guy named Rod. He was very interesting and came out with a BIG BANG! Mostly everyone enjoyed his presence and loved the activities he showed us.

When he introduced himself he told us his Aborginal name which was ...Um! He also told us his brothers Aboriginal name which was ...Ah!

We also got to go bushwalking. Some students got leeches on their feet and skin.

Rod brought some ochre which is a special stone which you can crumble and draw patterns

on your skin. It was so much fun!

To make it more interesting Rod brought some of his boomerangs. All the teachers and some students got to have a go of throwing it.

All in all it was so much fun and we all had a great time.

Skye, Michelle

Feeding time at the Zoo:

 FOOD! FOOD! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!!

At Mogo we had very little variety, but it was nice. Some asked for no gravy at dinner. They said it looked weird. In the afternoon we had the best hotdogs in the world, they were so tasty. I wish I could have had 10 helpings.
 
For dessert we had vanilla ice cream and CHOCOLATE CAKE. The ice cream was nice but the cake was dry. In the morning we had cereal, toast, yogurt & peaches. That was really delicious. I rate the food a 7/10. Mogos food is very good.

There were problems with the dinner that made some people think they felt sick,. They said they put too much gravy or something. A couple said the chicken schnitzel appeared to be red in the middle and tasted weired. But I really liked it so I think they must have been imagining things. Especially when the ate all of their meal. Some people just like to find fault. 

I want to go to Mogo again and again and again! Ther food is so yummy! The breakfast was mouth watering!

Julius, Emelyn

Bush Dancing:

 Bush dancing is a type dancing that they did back in the 1850's for fun or to find love. We did bushdancing at Mogo Town. Some of the dances that we did were: The Heel and Toe Polka, The Stockyard Ballad and a new dance called The Snake (so our band said). In the snake we had to have three in a group and the girls at first had to weave in and out of the boys then the boys did the same. This was all really lots of fun.

Examples of the clothes that people wore include; long, puffy dresses for girls or checkered tops and jeans with boots, while the boys wore white shirts jeans and suspenders. There were others were wearing suits and some boys also wore checkered tops and jeans. Wow!

There was prizes for the best dressed and for the Year Five girls Tyler B came first and for the Year Five boys Rahul came first. For the Year sixes, Crystal was the winning girl's with Julien B taking out the boy's competition. Bushdancing was really a whole lot of fun and we would definitely like to do it again.

Stephanie, Julien, Michael

Let's Get to Sleep:

 The most epic part of camp was obviously being in our cabins with our friends!

Late at night it was really dark in the cabins and every time we needed to go to the bathroom we would trip over all of the bags in the walkway.

In one of the boys cabin there was a redback spider on the roof, but in the girls cabin there was a cockroach in the cupboard. All of the girls took cover and screamed. Luckily, Emelyn, my hero, squished the cockroach with her thong. That was a close one!

Before we had to go to bed most of the cabins were having fun and laughing heaps. It looked like everyone was having a great time in the cabins at Mogo Town. Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Campmass!

Jasmine, Matt

Freetime:

 Free Time was a mix of activities chosen by students including sport,using phones (not for ringing people though) and talking. Sports like footy, tennis, cricket and frisbee were a great substitute for Friday sport.Some people got into trouble for swinging on the volleyball net. Many balls and sport equipment were flying over the fence. Free time was not long but a whole lot of fun.

Other people were just using phones or talking. People were getting bored doing that so they played sport instead. It was funny when people were slipping over in the wet grass. Free time might have been a waste of time but it was better than the bus (sitting down for 4 hours straight).

For the record, free time was one of the things that made us interact with each other.

Daniel, Rico

Making Damper and Toys:

Damper:


One of the activities we did was to make damper. We took bowls with flour and water in them and we mixed it up then put them into a sort of flattened ball and then baked them for a few minutes. Once they were cooked we cut them in half, put golden syrup on them and shared them with a partner.




Toys:

We made toys that children used to play with a long time ago. It was basically a button attached to some string. You have to continuously spin it.

We call it a button spinner. It was fun to play with except we didn't use some buttons and string we used circular pieces of cardboard and a wooly string not very tough at all.

Ian, Joel

Let's Wrap it Up:

 

 In conclusion we overall recommend that everyone should visit Old Mogo Town and we rate it 10/10, 100%. We loved doing every single thing, like making damper, toys, bush dancing, gold panning and the fantastic cabins. Most people enjoyed the trip and so will you, if you travel to Mogo Town.

Jessica, Chloe