Year 9 Mountain Biking Expedition

Year 9 Mountain Biking Expedition - Camel Farm, Kalamunda by Jo-Anna Maynard (Year 9)

On Wednesday, 18 September the Year 9 Outdoor Education class and teachers, Mrs Davini and Mr Elliott went to Kalamunda Camel Farm to participate in a mountain bike expedition as part of our Outdoor Education course. The bus arrived at the College where we then loaded all the mountain bikes into a trailer and made our way up the hill to Kalamunda. After arriving, we were met by Mark and Peter from Rock ’n Roll Mountain Biking who were our guides and coaches for the day. Mark had also previously taken our class for a few mountain biking skills sessions earlier in the term back at school.

We were then spilt up into two groups and given number plates for our bikes, which enabled Mark and Peter to easily identify us. Once the number plates were on our bikes we were given a briefing of the challenges we were up against. Peter took my group around a beginner course, which many of us thought was challenging at the start, but as we got more confident it became less frightening. Peter then took our group around the same course but this time we had the chance to tackle a few more of the difficult jumps, corners and rocky surfaces. 

As the day went on Peter challenged a few of our balancing skills, like crossing skinny planks and going over "camel humps". Here I had a funny stack as I came off the plank and went over the handlebars straight into a tree. The “camel humps” needed to be attacked with some speed and some of the group found that out the hard way!

The highlight, as many of us know, was the long tree trunk that we had to cycle across. This was definitely the most challenging part of the day, as over half the boys were too frightened to cycle across the tree. Maybe it was because Mr Elliot and I had a very funny but painful fall!

We had a few mechanical glitches and unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us, though at times it was a cool relief. All in all, we enjoyed the day and returned back to school - a little late - but in one piece.