Adventure Training Camp

In the June holidays, I went for an NPCC camp in Pulau Ubin which is known as Adventure Training Camp (ATC). This was a camp that I actually dreaded, due to the many mosquitoes and sand flies within the campsite, and I feared of getting bitten. I did not really look forward to this camp due to the fact that we actually had to sleep in tents, with the hot and sweaty conditions. As we set off to the camp, the only thing that I looked forward to was the return journey.

However, all of my fears came out untrue. Firstly, for the entire camp, I only had six mosquito bites in total, of course at the course of an entire bottle of insect repellent, and I had no sand flies bites at all. Next, sleeping in the camp was not that bad after all, especially since the fact that it was very windy. Lastly, this camp has helped us as we interacted with students from other schools, as well as helped to strengthen the friendship bonds we have within our own squad, as most activities require teamwork and trust with the other party. Although the camp was tough, it was indeed an enriching experience, as we get to try out cooking for ourselves, as well as eating combat rations, which tasted disgusting to me, and lastly, we could trek around Pulau Ubin.

The hardest part within the camp itself was actually the walking into the campsite. Due to the fact that Camp resilience was actually quite far from the jetty, we had to walk around 2 to 3 kilometers just to enter the campsite, and by then, most of us were already tired out. The easiest part was then the various cooking of the meal. This is due to the fact that we were previously trained, and thus this part was actually very easy to all of us. The part that was the most fun was the kayaking part, whereby we kayaked around in a two-man kayak in the sea.

After the entire camp, I felt that ATC has indeed toughened me up, and I am looking forward to next year’s camp which is Survival Training Camp (STC).

~Gordon Koh