Car Camp, 2001

Most students on Visiting Teacher Service will not be eligible to obtain a Victorian Driver's Licence, however they will spend time travelling in cars, as passengers. The aims of Driving Camp are for students to:

Each year up to 16 students with vision impairments accompanied by their Visiting Teachers make their way up to Charlton in northern Victoria to learn to drive. The driving facility has a bitumen and off-road sections with a hill, traffic lights, round-about, parking spaces, and a room out of the wind and rain for the staff! The experienced driving instructors take up to four students in each car and work with them at their individual level.

Below: Students and staff with two of the four cars in 2001.

Here is what Kat wrote about her experience at Driving Camp in 2001:

SMASH! That was a sound never heard on this driving camp.

The driving camp was organised by Statewide Vision Resource Centre on Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd November at Charlton a country town about 100km west of Bendigo. Eight vision impaired students attended from Colac, Bendigo and Melbourne and most of us had not met each other before. The Driver Education Course is organised by teachers and instructors from Charlton Secondary College.

The Driver Education Centre is just outside Charlton and is made up of bitumen and gravel and has traffic lights, road markings and figure eight loops. There was a small hill to practise hill starts and bays to try parallel parking and angle parking. The road had curves and tight bends so we just didn’t drive in straight lanes. The school has three new Toyota Corollas – yes manuals. We had 2 or 3 students in each car with an instructor.

Because of the rainfall during the week a few students ended up going through the water on the side of the road. We managed to get ourselves out. Each student had about fifteen minutes driving during each session. We learnt how to change gears, reverse, what speeds for corners and changing road surfaces and basic road safety. We all tried the figure eight road forward AND reverse. Some of us ended up rounding up the sheep on the track. Brian, Graham, Bernadette and Noelle were great instructors and helped all of us.

We stayed at the Charlton Motel – two students to a room and had dinner there on Monday night. We managed a few games of poker using banana chips for money. All of us had a great time and I know we are going back next year.

Below: Kat in the driver's seat!

If you would like more information about the Camps and Activities program, please contact Deb Lewis.

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