An Exchange to Remember in Tasmania
By Rory Cameron ’21
Going across the Pacific Ocean to Tasmania, off the south coast of Australia, was a first for me. It was a hard flight - I am not going to lie. First, I went back to Argentina, which is my home, and spent a couple of days there before flying to Australia. By the time I arrived in Launceston, Tasmania, two days had passed since I’d left Lakefield. When I finally reached my host family’s home, I just wanted to lay down and have a rest, even though it was 4:00 p.m. local time. But to my surprise, the entire extended family of my exchange partner, Charlie Warren, were all together to celebrate his sister’s birthday. And so, I found myself jumping into family life with the Warren’s right from the beginning.
Because of the long flight, I was allowed to skip the first day of school at Scotch Oakburn College, which was the first day of term. In the meantime, I knew that Charlie was already settling into life at Lakefield as his part of the exchange. The next day, his parents had kindly arranged for Charlie’s friends to stop by to walk me to school, so I was able to make some new SOC friends right away. For the first time in three and a half years, I was a day student. I was given my timetable and found that it was very different from what I was used to, with only three classes a day. Also, it repeated itself every two weeks, but still with eight different classes altogether. It felt weird going to classes not knowing anybody and wearing a different uniform, but thankfully one of the students who had walked with me to school was in all of my classes, and he made sure that I was okay. In fact, all of the people I met were very friendly and introduced themselves to me. Also, there were three other exchange students at Scotch, all from South Africa, with whom I spent all my time with when everyone else in the grade was writing exams, as it was nearing the end of the school year there.
Staying with a family instead of being a boarder really allowed me to see a lot of the island of Tasmania. I visited my host family’s summer house, went camping for a weekend on an island off the east coast of Tasmania, visited the other large city in Tasmania, Hobart, where we climbed a mountain to have a great view of the entire city, went ziplining, took a ride on a Segway for a day, and even went spotlight hunting one night. Also, a friend of my dad’s invited me to his farm one weekend, which was only 45 minutes away from Launceston, where I saw a kangaroo, wallaby, platypus, echidna, seahorse, wombat, emu, Tasmanian devil and a koala, all for the first time. A few weeks later, right before I went back to Argentina, the Warren’s took me to Sydney for a couple days where I ticked some other sights off my bucket list, such as the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach.
Another thing I did while at Scotch Oakburn that was certainly a “first” for me was to take part in one of their specialized training camps. Scotch has three camps that Grade 10s can choose from, including survival, white-water rafting, and rock climbing. I chose survival. What this camp involved was that, for a week, you were dropped off in the forest, or bush as they call it, with a teacher and you basically had to survive. We built our own shelters out of sticks, ropes and tarps, with leaves as a mattress. They taught us how to light a fire with only a knife, fire steel and whatever fuel we could find on the ground, how to skin and butcher a wallaby, and other survival stuff. And on the last day, they leave you alone in the forest, one hundred metres away from the nearest person, with a bag of uncooked food, your knife, fire steel, water bottle (because there was a creek about twenty metres away), and some tarps because it was going to rain.
Things started out well; I had my shelter built and my tarps set up, but then it started to rain. First, some background information: they hadn’t received more than 20 mm of daily rainfall in that area for over 20 years, and that day it rained 40 mm! As you can guess, it was a struggle to get my fire going. Thankfully, the teachers stop by on two occasions during the solo camp, so when one of them did come, he helped me get the fire going with some cotton balls. That hour or so when I couldn’t get my fire going and I was wet and cold was not my best, but once I got my fire going, darkness arrived, and I ate my food, I was okay. When I went to sleep that night, I thought “Well, my shelter is a bit small but apart from that, I’ll sleep fine.”
At about 2:00 a.m. I awoke and discovered that both myself and all of my equipment was totally drenched. What I hadn’t realized was that the area where I was meant to build my shelter was in a small basin, so all of the water just flooded and pooled in it. I sat cold and wet in my shelter until about 5:00 a.m. and when the sun came up, I took my shelter down, put all of my gear in my bag under a tarp. Since I couldn’t get a fire going because it was still raining, I waited for about five hours until somebody came and took me back to camp. Once again, these were not my finest moments, but the camp as a whole was an amazing experience and I now know how to survive if the worst comes to the worst.
Thankfully, there weren’t that many challenging experiences because of how friendly and open the people were there, but the most challenging things were probably the rain that would not stop coming down no matter how many times I yelled at it, and at times, catching on to the Tasmanian accent.
To me, the best things about the exchange experience were learning about the local culture and comparing how people live in Tasmania, which is very different from what I was used to. For example, if you go anywhere outside the city you will almost certainly see a kangaroo or a wallaby. Also, one day we had the fire going in early December, which is late spring there, when it was 8oC outside.
My advice to other students is that if you are considering applying for an exchange, do it. There are no negatives to stepping outside your comfort zone in this way. The best way to learn about a different culture is probably through an exchange, because you get dropped right in the middle of another school and culture for up to three months. And I’d certainly recommend Scotch Oakburn College as a host school, because the people are really friendly and welcoming there; they make you comfortable within the first hour of meeting them.
In short, if somebody asked me if it is worth going abroad on exchange, I wouldn’t hesitate in the slightest to say “yes!” Being able to go to another country and learning everything about its culture is an amazing experience. Also, having the opportunity to take in sights that you usually only see in the movies and think, “I hope one day I can see that for real,” is an unforgettable experience. Having to catch up on school work when you return to LCS can be tough, but in my opinion, it’s totally worth it.
I want to thank Mr. Bird, as well as the Round Square Rep from Scotch Oakburn College, Mr. Walls, for organizing this experience for Charlie and me. And of course, I also want to thank the Warren’s for their hospitality and for making my exchange so amazing!
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4391 County Road 29, Lakefield Ontario K0L 2H0 705.652.3324 admissions@lcs.on.ca
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Lakefield College School is a private, coeducational boarding and day school for students in grades 9 through 12, located in Lakefield, Ontario, Canada.
We respectfully acknowledge that Lakefield College School is located on the Treaty 20 Michi Saagiig territory and in the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the Williams Treaties First Nations, which include: Curve Lake, Hiawatha, Alderville, Scugog Island, Rama, Beausoleil, and Georgina Island First Nations. Lakefield College School respectfully acknowledges that the Williams Treaties First Nations are the stewards and caretakers of these lands and waters in perpetuity and that they continue to maintain this responsibility to ensure their health and integrity for generations to come.
We respectfully acknowledge that Lakefield College School is located on the Treaty 20 Michi Saagiig territory and in the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the Williams Treaties First Nations, which include: Curve Lake, Hiawatha, Alderville, Scugog Island, Rama, Beausoleil, and Georgina Island First Nations. Lakefield College School respectfully acknowledges that the Williams Treaties First Nations are the stewards and caretakers of these lands and waters in perpetuity and that they continue to maintain this responsibility to ensure their health and integrity for generations to come.
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