For more than 65 years, Timbertop has been offering students the opportunity to stretch themselves through the challenges that the outdoor environment brings. Each new experience is another opportunity for students to develop internal resources that they can call on at a later time, or in another situation. These internal resources or inner strengths, developed through the Timbertop experience, can often stay with students for a lifetime.
Building the foundations
The Outdoor Programme starts with students camping out and learning the practical and theoretical skills to safely engage in the upcoming challenges, culminating with a hike up Mt Timbertop. Students undertake a series of increasingly difficult two-and-a-half-day hikes which take them through the rugged and remote Victorian High Country, allowing them to engage positively with risk, connect directly with the environment and develop their resilience, independence, and reliance upon each other.
The final Three Day Hike is the first opportunity for students to choose their level of challenge, so by the end of the term they have experienced what it means to survive, and even thrive, understanding more about the edges of their physical, emotional, and social limits.
An overnight solo experience concludes the term, providing students with time to reflect on their achievements and growth to date.
Extending the experience
In Term 2, students explore new terrain during a four-day Unit-based hike. This trip allows students to focus on the group dynamics of their Unit and provides opportunities for individuals to demonstrate leadership. A second opportunity for a solo experience is provided in Term 2, but with an increased period in which to reflect. A unit-based Rogaine competition, where units race to collect markers around campus and on top of Mt Timbertop, concludes Semester 1 in the outdoors.
Unforgettable expeditions
Term 3 begins with students undertaking an overnight Winter Expedition on Mt Stirling, and each Unit sleeps in the GGS Hut. Over this period, they learn the basics of cross-country skiing while exploring a transformed Mt Stirling under a blanket of snow.
The adventure progresses to a four-day Unit-based backcountry expedition on the Bogong High Plains. Students camp on snow and spend their time exploring the Bogong High Plains on skis, digging snow shelters and kitchens, and being fully immersed in the winter alpine environment. Term 3 again culminates in a 24-hour solo experience on campus.
Choice and challenge
Term 4 enables students to capitalise on their experiences and resilience developed over the year, exercising a new level of choice and agency in as they undertake a range of increasingly ambitious and challenging hikes. Punctuating these hikes are a range of trips which expose students to different ways of being in the natural world.
The students finish their year in the outdoors with a Four Day Hike, which for many involves exploring the distant peaks of Mt McDonald and The Razor-Viking. The year concludes with the Six Day Hike where students plan their own route and logistics to enable them to be entirely self-sufficient as they make one final journey through the Victorian High Country.