Camp Journal

Aqua Splash!!

10th August 2022

Today the campers headed to the aqua splash water park in Lausanne for a day swimming in the pools and soaking up the sun.

After breakfast both the juniors and seniors hopped on the bus for a scenic journey along lake Geneva to Lausanne for the aqua splash park. There was so much on offer at aqua splash, from lazy rivers and wave pools, to diving boards and slides galore. The juniors enjoyed a morning swimming in the shallow pools, taking trip after trip in the lazy river and cruising down the slides before spending the afternoon on the big slides. Dang Dang, Ayad, Ben and George had the worlds biggest splash off – the winner remains undecided.

While the seniors had free reign to go around as they liked, they raced down the free fall slide, the green enclosed speedy slide, and the chilled out blue slide. Tvrtko, Sam and Lucas even showed off their bravery by jumping off the 10 meter diving board while an audience cheered them on.

After a long day in the sun the campers headed back in the coach for a dinner of sausages, gnocchi and stuffed red peppers, and then showed off their acting skills with skits for the evening activity. Everyone should be sleeping well tonight after that!

Languages, swimming & Parc Aventure!

9th August 2022

Today was a fun filled today for the senior campers of Camp Suisse. In the morning the non-language lesson campers went to Champéry pool by chairlift and cable car. The sky was clear today and the weather was immaculate so the campers took in the breathtaking views of the Dents Du Midi mountain range while going to the pool. It was really a sight to behold. Florence and Chloe loved the diving board and were creative by trying out different jumps. Language lessons also went well with different skills being learnt, such as debating in English, where Aviya and Shahar became extremely engaged in communicating and defending their opinions. After lunch the senior campers went to Parc Aventure, a high ropes park in Aigle, where the campers were challenged by the heights and the various obstacles, bridges and swings. The campers started off with the easier courses then eventually moved to the more difficult ones. Arni breezed passed most of the courses, while Petur took a cautious approach, as he was tackling the many obstacles which faced him. Parc Aventure was an amazing excursion and a great day out. In the evening the campers had a movie night as they winded down from an action packed day full of incredible memories and non-stop excitement.

First day of Session 4!

7th August 2022

Today we had languages and bush craft in the morning and  a music quiz in the evening. 

We had languages from 9-12. In the Spanish lesson we learned about family members and food. Everyone created their own recipe and explained it to the rest of the class, it was really interesting because we learned about dishes from different countries. After three hours of languages we had hot dogs for lunch. 

Everyone was really excited because after lunch we went on a beautiful hike in the middle of the Swiss alps, while doing the hike, we collected some sticks for our campfire. When we went back to camp, we made and cooked bread in the fire with cinnamon and sugar it was delicious. We then had shower hour and dinner. 

For the evening activity we did a music quiz; it was a competition between all the teams. Everyone was really good and worked together as a team. We had a small price for the winner 🙂 

While we were doing the quiz, we saw the beautiful sunset which was really calming and relaxing, after we finished our evening activity we got ready to bed to recharge our batteries for the following day.

Language Tournaments & Waffles!

3rd August 2022

Greens and yellows enjoyed an action-packed morning. Campers learning English, Spanish, and French finished their language projects and enjoyed a tournament-style competition with other students. Alice, Tvrtko, Adriana won bragging rights as they aced the Emoji music quiz and jeopardy game. Non-languages took a few chairlifts across the border to France and enjoyed waffles at Les Lindarets, a popular ski and mountain biking village. After a hot lunch of paninis, greens and yellows headed back out to learn survival skills during Bushcraft. They learned how to build shelters using hammocks. Bassam was the judge of sturdiness, comfiness, and ease of use – he rated his own team as making the most elite hammock. Campers finished off the session by making their own bread over an open fire! After a delicious dinner of chicken curry, greens and yellows got to show off their skills at Camp Suisse Got Talent before their penultimate sleep of camp.

Dreamy days for our Greens and Yellows

2nd August 2022

This morning greens woke bright and early to do a quick morning meditation in the sun with the stunning backdrop of the Dents du Midi. They then went on to catch a chairlift up the mountain to meet the yellows after their camping trip. We all continued on together to Monthey pool where all the yellows and greens spent half a day trying to convince Natalia (our yellow colour group leader) to jump off the diving board. Jeremy outdid himself showing us all his backflips, Nahia loved using the slides but only backwards and on her belly and Bassam couldn’t get enough of the diving boards despite wanting to save his swimming energy for the Aqua Park planned for Thursday.

After leaving the pool we had a short walk into Monthey town where everyone got an hour for some free time. Full advantage was taken of the nearest Coop and Migros, but I think the biggest news of the day was Alice managing to find a pair of Urban Outfitter joggers for only 5 francs! Amazing. The sun had nearly everyone sound asleep on the quick bus ride home. Blackjack and roulette at the Casino night had everyone super competitive for the highly demanded prize of nogrots. After a quick wind down of basketball or a movie both the greens and yellows went to bed soundly.

Reds and Blues do Eurovision!

Today our brilliant blues and reds woke up ready for another fun filled day starting off with the great languages Eurovision !!!!

The contest started off with each team getting their face paints on in their country’s colours ready to complete before the fabulous opening ceremony ! Anastasia, Maisy, Léo and Amelie did Japan proud with their amazing performances of give that wolf a banana and believer complete with choreography, Kyara, Mika, Enzo and Hadil represented France with particular highlights being Enzo’s incredible solo and the team’s Baby Shark / Pump it Up Mash Up! Similarly, representing the USA and Ukraine, Danielle, Adelina, Anna, Luella and Eleanor pulled out show shopping performances of Call Me Maybe ! Rupert also wowed the audience with his version of Boom Boom I Wanna Hear You Say ‘Way Oh’ representing England !

The singers all put the staff’s performances to shame and many won jelly snakes after being harshly judged by our judges Christian, Hadi, Nicolas and Ethan!

A visit to the creperie as a last day of languages treat followed Eurovision with campers loving their hot chocolate and Nutella filled crepes !

This afternoon was super exciting as we headed off ice skating! I think Blanca, Rupert, Bouke and Anna may be future winter Olympians with the speed they were skating around the rink! Tovel and Dean better watch out !!!!!!!!!

We are very proud of our legends again today ! Fabulous behaviour, participation and teamwork !

Languages and camping for the Greens & Yellows!

1st August 2022

Today we had languages in the morning and camping in the evening.

We had languages from 9-12. In the Spanish lesson we learned about food, everyone created their own recipe and explained it to the rest of the class. It was really interesting because we learned about dishes from different countries. After three hours of languages we had hot dogs for lunch.

Everyone was really excited because after lunch we got our bags and all our kit ready to go camping. It was a 2 hours hike to get to our camp location – a beautiful chalet in the middle of the Swiss Alps! We were really lucky with the weather; it was sunny so we enjoyed being outside. We then had dinner all together. For the evening activity we had a general knowledge quiz by teams and the winner team got a small price.

While we were doing the quiz, we saw the beautiful sunset which was really calming and relaxing, after we finished our evening activity we got ready to bed to recharge our batteries for the following day.

Swiss Day for the Reds and Blues!

The Reds and Blues had a spectacular day today from raiding the Cailler Chocolate Factory to enjoying the National Swiss day celebrations in Gruyere!

The day began with our exciting trip to Maison Cailler, the chocolate factory tour experience. Here we learned many interesting things about the history of chocolate, while exploring the Aztec jungles for Cocoa beans and even seeing how the French Revolution gave chocolate to the masses!

Next was the bit our Reds and Blues simply couldn’t wait for, the chance to be a real-life chocolate tester! Everyone jumped at this opportunity with Bouke and Ethan being particularly good at eating lots of chocolate!!

After this delicious experience we made our way to the cheese town of Gruyere, where Swiss day celebrations were in full swing. Here we got the opportunity to see goats, sheep, and cows as we joined in on the festivities. It was a very hot day so we all made sure to cool ourselves down the best way possible, with ICE CREAM!!

Eleanor definitely enjoyed this part of the trip.

All in all, we had a fantastic day with our AMAZING Reds and Blues!

Reds and Blues go to the farm!

31st July 2022

We had a fantastic day at Relais Farm today.

The reds and blues enjoyed the bouncy castle, climbing frames, slides and merry go rounds.

They took turns on the bouncy slides and petted the farm cats. We had lunch in the mountain sunshine and took a walk around the farm.

We saw sheep, Ilamas, the biggest rabbits of all time, goats and Mika even took a ride on the Shetland pony!

We had a lovely afternoon snack in the restaurant under the shade.

The kids bought ice lollies and drinks.

After a final pet of the goat and bounce on the castle, we returned to Les Crosets happy.

The Camp Suisse Olympics

30th July 2022

The campers got ready to bring some competitive spirit in the traditional Camp Suisse Olympic Games. The Reds, Blues, Greens and Yellows joined forces and chant to represent their countries. From China to Brazil we had 8 different countries competing against one another. The campers enjoyed signing their national anthem, painting flags and the lighting of our Olympic Flame. They also demonstrated their team work and perseverance across different games such as Water Relay, the EGGstreme 🥚 race, blinded basketball and the grand finale between The Netherlands and Greece at the thrilling alpine camp suisse TUG WAR!

Congratulations to the joint winners The Netherlands 🇳🇱 and our host country, Switzerland 🇨🇭 !!!