The way up was the same as going to skiing but with one slight problem: we had cows in front of us.  This was a pain because it took too long to get up to where the ski slopes were.  When we got up there we met two men who welcomed us and then helped us with the cleaning up. 

We started on the hill just across from the restaurant and shops.  What we saw was an extremely marshy area.  We picked up bottles that were left behind by skiers, as well as ski passes.  Mr Lineham found one of the most interesting things up there:  a ski pass from Morzine that had the phone number of the hotel we stayed at and Mr Hill's phone number!!!  As we started to move away from the first marsh and onto the second, we started to see some slugs and snails ... which the girls just loved!

Garbage all collected it was time for lunch courtesy of the tourist office.  We all left Les Mosses with a happy feeling - having done something good for the environment.

Devan Pilarski

On a normal Saturday for most people, a group of young students who were about to have a good camping trip if it didn't rain. So we started to load all the stuff on to the bus and then Mr. Lineham and Mr. Mac Sweeney called all our names to see if everyone was there. So we left school at around 8:30 am and it wasn't too bad but we were all tired.

When we got there we were all not ready to walk 14km from Moudon to Ropraz. We said that after every 30 mins we would take a break as we started to walk along the path we saw many different kind of things such trees and rivers and bridges. We started the trip in Moudon and we just kept on walking for miles and miles to Rossenges then to Syens then to Le Closy then to Vucherens and then to Ropraz to camp. The whole first bit of the trip was fun and not too bad for walking but towards the end it got worse but we still didn't complain. As we were nearly there a lot of people didn't know where they were going so we let Nathalie, Amanda and Eri lead us to the camp site and they did.

At the camp site at night we were taught how to cook our food because it was different from cooking at home so Mr. Lineham told us what to do and we did it and my group. Alex, Ed and I made pasta and basically everyone else did the same because everyone loves pasta. After the meal we were told to clean up and we did but Dudley and Jay put their soap in the fountain which Mr. Lineham said don't do. Cooking was fun but sleeping was hard because of the rocks underneath but I still tried to sleep.

The next morning everyone woke up early to make their breakfast but not everyone got to eat a lot in the morning because the teachers thought that it was going to rain but it passed over without raining. We started at Ropraz and went to Meleries and stopped for a short break but we left as soon as possible and went to La Solitude but didn't stop and instead went to Peney le Jorat, then stopped and went to Villars Mendraz then all the way to Sottens and then to Beauregarti.

After everyone arrived in the area we all left through the town and back to the bus in Moudon and got ice cream for being very good and then went back to school and cleaned up everything that we brought and we put them away. Boy were we tired but it had been a great time.

Devan Pilarski, Year 8

 Year 11 Camping Trip

The Year 11 camping trip consists of hiking all day and overcoming large feats: such as climbing up steep rocky hills and trying to get past territorial cows!

But this year our class was lucky because the weather managed to stay warm and sunny for the whole trip making it even more enjoyable. To start off our excursion we took the mini bus from school to the Montreux train station and waited for the Golden Pass Panorama to take us to Montbovon. Once there we took another train to Gruyere; a bus to Moleson, a funicular to Plan Français and then hiked in good weather.

We started at Plan français and headed down at roughly 12:30 but not without our fair share of hills, with Ms. Beckett and Mr. Lineham accompanying us the whole of the first day.

We made it to Belle Chaux with only a few minor mistakes on the way. We walked past the Dent de Lys, past Paccots and finally to the Petit Coudon; which is where we camped. We set up and cooked dinner some more skillfully then others. The next day we had an early start at 7:00 most even waking up earlier. We ate breakfast packed our tents away and were off around 9:15. We started the day heading up hill, the teachers now trailing behind leaving us to find our own ways; we were one big group of 10 consisting of 6 girls and 4 boys.

We reached the Col de soladier and from there it was all roughly flat land, which was a relief. We met up with the teachers at the Col de Jaman and had lunch. Leaving our bags behind...luckily! We headed up the Dent de Jaman, where we went from 1,512 metres to 1,875 metres!! But it was not as bad as previous hills we has hiked because it was not one steep slope but curved into many smaller slopes. We successfully reached the top!!

Once reaching the bottom it was an hour and a half walk down hill to the campsite, but before heading down Mr. Lineham and Ms. Beckett treated us to ice cream and cokes at the restaurant.

Our campsite was by a stream as was the previous campsite. A new hobby was picked up by most of the campers and this was whittling twigs into spears or map pointers. This proved to be quite fun and amusing as well as keeping us occupied in the evenings.

The next morning we had a bit of a late start at 7:15 but that was not important, today our hike would be completed by ourselves with no help or guidance from the teachers.

The hiking was less stressful because we were heading into familiar area. We first went to Les Avants then from there an extreme uphill to Sonloup and from there it was downhill. We went to Blonay and even passed some people’s houses. We had our lunch there in a park and then headed down to school; managing to beat the teachers there.

Over all the LVS trip was a great experience improving our map reading skills and testing our endurance level but never the less was lots of fun!!

                                                                               Victoria Di Napoli

The return ...

dirty, hot, tired and foot sore!

but smiling!

New LVS Award Winners