A trip to the sewage plant, and other sh*tty school excursions

These days, pampered teens go on school trips to Europe, Japan or the ski fields. It’s a world away from the grim excursions endured by kids of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

From sewage plants to a bottling factory, nudist beaches to a bacon slaughterhouse, we’ve recalled some of the most excruciating school excursions of our childhood.

Right now my son is in Europe on a school trip. Yes, Europe.

Waving him off at the airport on the weekend made me think about my own sorry history of school excursions.

Our Adelaide school went on a tour of the Coca-Cola factory each year.

It was an annual highlight. Kids would have half a day off and then go to the Thebarton plant in a bus and get – wait for it – a can of Coke.

A whole can. Each. That was what passed for fun before the internet was invented.

The only problem was that my mum wouldn’t let my sister and I go. She disapproved of the commercialism of the outing. No half-day off. No can of Coke for us.

Just look how excited this worker at the Adelaide Coke factory was at the prospect of another bloody school tour.

Another school trip was to a grain silo which gave me weapons-grade hayfever. I also remember annual trips to admire the Christmas light display at the local brewery in Hindmarsh, which was not much fun in broad daylight. And we didn’t get a can of beer to take home.

It’s a long way from the Space Camps kids go on these days to the USA, or language classes in Japan, or ski clubs in Canada.

I asked friends and colleagues for their best worst excursion memories. One friend said she went on camping trips with her father’s gun club. That’s going to give impressionable youngsters a great appreciation for the great outdoors – and killing things.

Ask any Victorian, and they will tell you they about the trips to the Werribee sewage plant during their school days. Liam says it literally was a “shit excursion”.

These days kids still go to the Werribee sewage farm on the edge of Melbourne. It’s now called the Western Treatment Plant, and you don’t call it sewage, it’s now wastewater. (Not sure that improves the smell though. )

These children are clearly enthralled on a trip to the sewage ... sorry, water treatment plant.

My friend Hope visited trees planted in an old tip in country Victoria, Nicole went to the Tatura dairy and Bobbie remembers a trip to the oil refinery at Port Stanvac in SA. Woo hoo! There’s some crazy good times right there.

Another pal recalls going to Pioneer World in Armadale where they had an authentic pioneer experience: doing nothing fun for five days.

James remembers going to the Reptile House in Naracoorte in SA, which he says was “just a bloke’s house who found some stumpy-tail lizards on the side of the road”.

Queensland friends remember trips to the Tristrams soft drink factory in West End (yep, they got a free drink) along with the Arnott’s biscuit factory on Corro Dve where kids were excited to get two packets of “bought biscuits”.

“We were allowed to walk alongside the conveyor belts of biscuits and pick out some of them to each – imagine the OHS issues today,” Philip said.

Now this is more like it! Veteran employees Elaine and Frank at the Arnott's factory at Huntingwood. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Even better was the Golden Circle cannery which had taps where kids could drink pineapple juice. Stan tells me kids “would get sick from drinking too much”.

One Victorian friend remembered a school excursion to Ferntree Gully McDonald’s on Burwood Highway when it first opened in the ‘70s. “Free Junior burger, fries and a paper hat,” she said. Happy days indeed!

In regional Queensland in the 1970s, kids were given the choice of an excursion to the flour mill or the bacon factory, my friend Ian tells me.

“One wonders if those kids who chose the bacon option have ever processed that trauma from that field trip,” he said. “And yes, it was a plant where the animals were slaughtered on site.”

Kate remembers “an overly long bus trip from Perth to a dubious hotel in Kalgoorlie. The risk assessment for going down a mine shaft would not pass muster nowadays!”.

Imagine taking a bunch of a schoolgirls on an excursion to a nudist beach ... Shazz Weaver, president of Australian Naturist Federation, and her partner Barra Mundi (yes, that is his real name), are long-time visitors to Maslins beach. Picture: Dean Martin

My fave story came from Caroline, who went to a girls’ school. She remembers a trip to Maslin Beach for a geology excursion “looking for fossils”. Maslins, for those who don’t know, is a nudist beach. The girls found the fossils, but not the kind they were looking for. “It did not turn out well,” she laughed.

With all the talk today about our kids’ lack of resilience, I reckon we should cancel those passports and send our kids to the most boring, putrid place we can think of – without their phones. An abattoir, a sewerage farm, an oil refinery. That’ll help them find some inner grit, and if they’re lucky, they might get a freebie to take home.

What’s your best worst excursion? Leave a comment below or email [e-mail]