School Camp: What’s on the Menu?   

I wouldn’t call myself an avid camper. Honestly, it’s just not my thing. Sure, I like nature and all that, but my version of a holiday is at the poolside. Gratefully, I did go on many school camps throughout primary and high school and despite my disdain towards sleeping bags and relentless sandflies, I look fondly back on the memories beside the campfire. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, as much as I liked all the sing songs fireside, I don’t intend to be camping anytime soon, for myriad reasons all overshadowed by camp food. As a privilege disclaimer, school trips are a privilege that I was extremely lucky to be able to have, so this is in no way me being ungrateful. Just a reminiscence into the past for some light entertainment. 

Obviously, I exempt marshmallows over a fire from this list but the rest from my experience can get wrecked. Absolutely not again. I wouldn’t say that I’m really a picky eater, but I do have my limits. A plate of what I can only describe as orange goop attempting to pass as curry is where I draw the line.  

So, it seems in traditional Mol fashion I shall be taking a stroll down memory lane to the worst school camp food offerings, Hell’s Kitchen style. This week I am Gordon Ramsey, only that I’m no chef and a not so happy camper.  

Raro? Like many of us I’m sure, we went absolutely feral for that navel orange straight from the packet. Bumped up on sugar it was the highlight of camp. However, Raro on school camp isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. For starters they never got the ratio right. One packet per litre. Simple math, easy. Nope. On school camps you’d be lucky to get half a packet in five litres. Honestly what was the point? They really liked to play with your already fragile emotional state with that tease of greatness. The thimble of Raro per serving only to tint the water a lacklustre shade of orange. I don’t know about you, but I want my Raro how it was intended, neon. Neon orange. So orange that I can look at it and taste the flavour, so orange it burns my retinas. I can’t believe the teachers thought we missed the drastic colour shift between the student vs teacher Raro pints. Absolute bullshit. If you can’t tell, I’m still pissed. 

Continuing my rant, how about Milo. You don’t want half a spoon of Milo; fill half the cup and add a dash of milk. On school camps, the milo shortage got so bad the teachers had to police our portioning, devastating.  

A bit of a flip flop back to Raro, I’m not quite done. If you are going to survive a two-week camp, you need to be prepared. Forget the plasters, make room for extra sachets of Raro to consume right out the bag. Honestly, a little prisoner-esque contraband aesthetic but, desperate times. Another thing when you’re hiding that sugary goodness, remember to seal it shut to avoid spilling it through the tent. Sleeping in sugar sand all night on the cold tarps in a tent is hellish. On the bright side, you do wake up permanently smelling like an orange. I speak from experience, unfortunately. At least my tent didn’t flood at the same time because then I’d literally be sleeping in poorly ratioed Raro cordial.  

Okay a little bit of Richards family lore; my dad makes the greatest sausage rolls known to man. I’m not even being dramatic; a container of these sausage rolls at camp started an all-out power struggle and student uprising. To be honest, it was legendary. My dad found out the teachers were gatekeeping the sausage rolls for themselves and none of my classmates got to try them. Outraged, he told my sister and I to smuggle one container in for our friends and the other one was given to the teachers with strict instructions to share them with the rest of the students.  

On the topic of food smuggling, I may or may not have started my own chocolate egg cartel on one school camp. You see it was all perfect, I had been given a bag of mini chocolate eggs for the camp, and I’m not too big on chocolate but I do like money. Being a business-savvy 12-year-old, I saw an opportunity to make some camp moola. Each of these eggs were going at two camp dollars a pop. It was all underground of course, but I even sold caramel eggs to some teachers who will remain nameless. Very Breaking Bad of me. 

When you cross a river and then it floods the next day, you’re stuck until it goes down. I have no idea why they decided to take us across the river just out of camp for survival training, but I guess they didn’t think it would get quite so real. If anything, it proved just how unfit for the wild we all were. We survived, however this little f-up left us stranded across the river for an extra day staring longingly at the camp over the hill. Naturally, as survivalists, we had no food. We did, however, have a bottle of maple syrup and Milo powder. Desperate times call for desperate measures.  

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