MLC Grade 1 Dads & Daughters

This weekend was a great weekend.

My grade 1 daughter and I decided to invite her class to come camping with us so that we can further get to know the children and their parents.

We had made up some invitations and put them in all the school bags the last day before Easter in an attempt to give people lots of notice.  We had lots of families with plans already but are looking forward to us inviting them again.

We had 6 father/daughter teams which was a great size for the hike.  We looked for a local place to take them and felt Cathedral Ranges would be the best spot.  Last year Bailey & I did the Wells Cave track which is the areas hardest trail and Bailey got a lot of confidence from it.


So Saturday May 5, 2012 we arrived and started setting up camp.  I have recently acquired a new family sized tent which would accommodate a majority of the group.  It is made by the same brand as my Backpack and tent "Black Wolf" and so far I have found the tent to be very reliable as well as well thought out.  Plenty of storage pockets, room dividers etc.



You could see as the families showed up that the girls were chomping at the bit to be outside and have an adventure.  Surprisingly the fire was the centre of attention for a fair part of the afternoon.  Little fire bugs, I'd expect this from grade 1 boys but was surprised with these girls being so excited by flames.  Dads and daughters set about setting up camp through out the afternoon and even had time to get a small hike in before dinner.

We had 2 options for dinner.  I had brought my cast iron cooking gear and had the roast slow cooking in the dutch oven with carrots, corn and potatoes (all with a little butter included) wrapped in aluminium foil on the hot coals.

We also had a home made lasagne which sat on the grill over the fire slowly warming up.

Both dinners we gobbled up in no time and the girls soon started to chant for their marsh mellows.  We had eaten dinner about 6:30pm in the dark so around 7pm it was fairly reasonable to break out the goodies.  Marsh Mellows, jelly snakes, cookies and chocolate bananas all made an appearance and stimulated the girls into more fire play!  Writing in the air seemed to be the favourite.  I'm happy to report we had no incidents/accidents!

The dads broke out the cheeses and crackers once the girls were in bed and stayed up by the fire having a great chin wag.

The next morning as we packed up camp we had a traditional hot breakfast by the fire, eggs, bacon, beans and toast.  We were ready to hit the mountain.  About 9:45am we car pooled to Sugarloaf Peak car park and made our way up SugarLoaf peak.

This was no easy hike.  Dads were often spread across gaps passing kids up to each other so the girls felt safe in what we were attempting.  Sure there were times when there was tears from one or two children but thats expected when they have not been up this high before.



The cave was a real treat for the girls.

We stopped on the summit to gather out thoughts and rally the girls for the descent and luckily the cloud cover had cleared not 20 minutes earlier.

The way down had more tears or terror and Dads were even more involved but we all made it down safe and sound.

This will be the last camping for the year as the winter comes in, I'm really glad Bailey & I were able to share this with her school mates and their fathers.  We'll do these camps twice a year now for her class and hopefully keep getting more and more attendees.