19th PA Camp
The 19th Pan Australia Camp (PAC) was held from the 13th to the 22nd of January 2017 at the QCCC (Queensland Conference and Camping Centres) Tamborine Mountain site. Over 280 senior boys from across Australia attended the camp.
Some of the following recounts of PAC19 are taken from the daily newsletter.
Day One – Wow, we survived the madness that is day one registration. It’s been so good to see so many Campers from all over Australia Come together and Celebrate Boys Brigade. The day has been hot as predicted and had many campers comparing it to the Heat of the 18th Pan Australian Camp. Thankfully the evening cooled down in time for the opening celebration rally. I for one was very impressed with how much information Special Guest Cr Nigel Waistell, Deputy Mayor Scenic Rim regional Council presented on the history of Boys’ Brigade before he officially declared the 19th Pan Australian Camp open. Senior Chaplain John Armstong gave us a brief introduction to our camp study on ‘Two ways to Live.’ It’s been a while since we’ve had almost 300 Boys Brigaders worshipping together!
Day Two – Sizzling, slides, rides and slithering. If you’ve ever wondered how fast you could run on hot concrete, today was the day to find out. There were more sizzling feet on hot concrete than sausages at a Bunning’s Sausage sizzle. Boys employed many different ways of avoiding the heat from walking on grass, hopping and piggyback rides. Quite a few campers were hard at word completing their goal to do every water slide in White Water World. The Wedgie seemed to be the popular slide for the extreme thrill seekers with its near vertical drop. Everyone seemed to have their favorite rides at Dreamworld, but the most popular seemed to be the Tower of terror and Buzzsaw.
Day Three – First day of company activity rotations. Whitsunday and Magnetic swapped between Company Challenges and free time, chilling on a double lane racing water slide and skirmish amongst other activities. Fraser and Hamilton hit the beach and the movies while dodging the rain. Stradbroke and Hamilton had first go at the PentaPAC activity, Discover SE QLD. Nearly all cabin groups found it pretty easy going. Big tip: take the time to read the booklet and plan your route before you arrive at Southbank. Stradbroke and Moreton were treated to a few extra surprises. South bank plays host to the increasingly famous handcraft markets and street performers including, Dusty from Alice Springs. The big treat was seeing Adelaide Street turned into a Tokyo street with actors for the filming of scenes for the upcoming movie, Pacific Rim 2. While the colossal Jagers an Kaiju, weren’t seen, some lucky PAC 19 campers got to walk though down town Tokyo, I mean Brisbane, before the movie crews starting tearing down the set.
Day Four – Camp companies Whitsunday and Magnetic had a beach day at Kurrawa and also visited the Pacific Fair Shopping centre. Stradbroke and Moreton took part in a company challenge onsite and enjoyed some free time. Fraser and Hamilton went on the Discover SE QLD activity, which the PA Camps are famous for.
Day Five – Camp companies Stradbroke and Moreton had a beach day at Kurrawa and also visited the Pacific Fair Shopping centre. Fraser and Hamilton took part in a company challenge onsite and enjoyed some free time. Whitsunday and Magnetic went on the Discover SE QLD activity, which the PA Camps are famous for.
Day Six & Seven – Boys were able to choose what they took part in from a wide selection of electives. Electives included: Hiking, go-karting, bike riding, Movie World, paintball , indoor rock climbing, an overnight trip to Stradbroke Island, and more!
Day Eight & Nine – For days eight and nine the alphas and omegas were separated.
Alphas: The anticipation was growing and day finally arrived when PAC 19 Alphas would know what the Alphas Gauntlet would be. It was 42 separate activities of ‘minute to win in style challenges.’ Boys went around in teams of two. The challenges seemed simple enough but ended up being quite challenging. Challenged like Giant Jenga, getting a biscuit from your forehead to your mouth without using your hands, cup stack speed challenges, stacking .50c coins on top of each other, building a 3 layer tower of cans on a plate floating in a bucket of water balancing bowling balls and much much more. Winning teams from certain activities were called forward to participate in a boy’s verse Leaders challenge. All up there were 4 boys verse Leaders challenges that ended in a draw.
Omegas: The Alphas stayed at QCCC while the Omegas (BB age 15 +) went to BB QLD Glengarry outdoor education centre. The Omegas were given a more challenging age based tough mudder style obstacle course. The PAC 19 committee has raised the bar as far as the effort required to reach the Level required for Gold PentPAC. The majority of campers have come prepared and have raised their own standards and conquered the course. But it wasn’t all though, The campers got to sleep in the recently finished ensuited cabins that are located on site.
Day Ten – Boys departed in the morning and returned to their home states / territories with many memories!
