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AROUND CAMPUS
IRONBARK: UNBREAKABLE Bushfires in 2019, a global pandemic in 2020—the College’s iconic outdoor education experience has had a lot thrown at it, but, like its timber namesake, has proven strong enough to weather the storm!
Pictured: (left) the new firepit at Cronins; and new 'dunnies'. KEL SEY BRICKNELL
communications officer
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ronbark is a much-anticipated rite of passage for all St Peters students. Since 1976, students have farewelled technology to embrace the challenges of communal living, learning more about themselves than they could’ve thought possible. For years, Ironbark has gone ahead without any major interruptions. While the program has seen minor changes—a reduction in length and modern (inside!) toilets, to name a few—the overall values and experiences have stayed the same. That is, until the last two years. In our June edition of Plus Ultra we covered the challenges Year 9LM faced with the 2019 Australian Bushfires. We wrote, then, that their experience was the most eventful five weeks in the history of the program... Enter 2020. This year has raised the bar again for the College’s property at Crows Nest. From the lockdown period, which prevented students from travelling there at all, to social distancing requirements that altered the experience for the foreseeable future and caused families to really cut the cord quickly (with parents no longer allowed to get out of their cars to farewell their children or
Plus Ultra | November 2020
collect them from the property at the end of the experience), it’s been a wild ride for Ironbark. So just what’s happened at the farm we all love so much, and has the overall experience been affected? We spoke to Year 9 students, Matthew Harvie and Gabby Schmidt, to find out. “I was in the 9EF group of 2020,” Matthew told us—the first group to return to Ironbark after the lockdown. To ensure his group’s arrival, staff had been very busy making changes to the property. As Director of Ironbark, Matt Sullivan told us, Ironbark’s COVID-Safe Plan required a 50% occupancy reduction in all dorms (one person per four square metres). Throughout the program, only half the students would be able to sleep in the dorms (on the bottom bunks only) and the other half would sleep at Cronins—Ironbark’s pioneering camp. “With the students needing to spend at least nine nights at Cronins, instead of two,” Matt said, “the place needed an overhaul and remodel. The communal camp-fire pit was moved into the middle of the large shed area; designated, weatherproof sleeping spaces were established for the boys and girls; and more thunderbox toilets were installed.”
