Context for the trip
Throughout our university years, Milan and I had been involved in a uni club taking students out to country towns to volunteer. We were involved with the club for four years, and we ended our tenure there in December 2022. This was our first ever self-organised volunteering trip outside of that club. Really, the trip happened because I had been travelling for a while and Mils had been working, and we both realised we really missed volunteering. It was on this trip that the idea for Beyond City Lights was born.
This trip was from 19 to 21 May 2023, and saw us visiting Tarago in south-western NSW. It is a small town about 2.5 hours from Sydney, not too far out of Canberra. We were volunteering at the local primary school – Tarago Public School.
Milan organised this one with Lisa, the acting principal of the school. On this trip we were accompanied by 13 volunteers, making a total of 15 including myself and Milan.
Friday: Arrival
Most of us drove down to Tarago on Friday afternoon. I had just started a new job that week and did not want to look bad by taking my first Friday off, so I left Sydney after work. I got to Tarago very late that night, but I drove down three others with me so it was a fun drive.
Next door to the school was an affiliated childcare centre, which the townsfolk had kindly prepared for us to use as accommodation. We stayed up playing board games until pretty late. I actually stayed up until 3am whisper-chatting to one of the participants about Pride and Prejudice. We would probably have kept talking longer, but one of the other participants told us to shut up and go to sleep, so we did.
We slept in our sleeping bags on the beautifully carpeted floors, and were very grateful for the heating because it got very cold at night.
Saturday: The footpath and Canberra
On Saturday morning we were greeted by Lisa and some members of the school staff, along with a couple of students and their parents. They informed us that our two big projects for the weekend were laying down a footpath connecting the school driveway with the childcare centre, and constructing a garden in front of the big school mural.
After having breakfast at a local cafe, we began work on the footpath. Although there were a few hiccups at the start, before long we were well underway and before we knew it, it was lunchtime. The town generously provided us with a home-cooked lunch, which we ate in the school’s basketball court.
Following lunch we got back on the tools, and about an hour later we were finished with the footpath project. We decided to push back the gardening project to Sunday, as we had been asked to do some mulching if we had the time, and figured we could finish it that evening.
The mulching did not take much time, so after finishing up we decided to drive to a pub in Canberra for dinner. On the way, we stopped at the lookout to Lake George. It was freezing.
Dinner was lovely, and as a bonus we decided to visit the Mt Ainslie Lookout to cap off the night. Following this we went back to Tarago and turned in for the night. This night I did not stay up til 3am.
Sunday: The garden and returning home
The morning dawned and we returned to the cafe to grab our morning coffee and breakfast.
Immediately after getting back, we began the work of constructing the garden. This involved outlining the bed, levelling it out and laying down large sleepers as edging. This took us a couple of hours. We then planted four rows of plants and added wood chips on top to finish it off.
This marked the end of the volunteering for that weekend. We said our goodbyes to the townsfolk, packed up our sleeping gear and set off back to Sydney.
This was an excellent trip and really solidified in my mind and Milan’s that just because we were no longer involved with that uni club didn’t mean that we needed to stop going on these volunteering trips. Beyond City Lights was born.