“GAIL is a social experiment.”

It started out as a joke – a throwaway line we came up with on the flight, where reality hit that we were stepping into Australia for a week with strangers from every corner of the world. But somewhere between sleepless nights, Mr. Ady’s infamous Dad-Jokes, and too many half-eaten pizzas, that phrase stopped being a joke. It became the only way to describe what GAIL truly was–  an experiment in connection, courage, and finding belonging where we least expected it.

The first week was a blur, starting out early-morning in Sydney. We were greeted with salt air, sunlight, and the most “surfable waves” – a city that felt alive even as we stumbled across it half-asleep. We explored the culture and heritage through park talks, city-wide walks, and spontaneous fits of laughter (or mini-naps)  that filled every bus ride. We fed kangaroos, met koalas, and ran from the large emus and birds that came pecking at every chance. Filled with way too much sushi, Yo-chi, Wingstop, McDonald’s, and Gelato, Sydney became our number one stop for Aussie fast food.

The next two days were spent taking a road trip through Avalon City and the Great Ocean Road, containing icy wind, stories, and mountains and oceans that didn’t seem to end. We stood at cliff edges, walked through jungles, hiked across rocky mountains, sat in chocolate factories, ate in small-town cafés, and ran from wild kangaroos when our bright idea of eating in the park went wrong. Between melting chocolate in our motel microwave to eat with fruit, raiding the supermarket, to parks we ate meals in, those two days were some of my most memorable parts of this trip.

Melbourne was our last stop before the conference, where we met Woodstock alumni for dinner, shared stories over our first Indian meal in days, and realised just how far the connections could reach. We then promptly followed this meal with frozen yogurt, which was a nice excuse to walk through the heart of Melbourne at night. 

Soon enough, the real “social experiment” truly began. The GAIL conference — where eight schools from  seven continents collided under one roof at Scotch College in Adelaide. We lived in their dorms (yes, the guys’ dorms, complete with urinals and all), scanning in with wristbands and carrying IDs that decided our groups, but somehow also shaped each of our days.

The week opened with a “First Nation’s Welcome to Country,” grounding us in a space that felt both foreign and familiar. Tim Jarvis,  an explorer and environmentalist, spoke about leadership and legacy – and something about his words lingered long after he left the stage. What followed was a whirlwind of sessions, laughter, and late-night conversations that blurred time. 

Workshops became windows into real-life connections with leadership –  psychologists, public health professionals, and Australian Football League athletes who spoke not about titles, but about resilience, empathy, and self-awareness. And suddenly, a lot quicker than we could realise, we found ourselves at lunch tables with people we didn’t know existed a couple of days ago, laughing about inside jokes we had made up, and found ourselves dreading the end of the week already. 

Cultural offerings were another highlight. With colourful Peruvian dances, Maori songs from New Zealand,  South African stories through podcasts, USA’s interesting games, and plenty more – we had so much to learn and see from the people surrounding us.  We decided to come dressed in saris and kurtas, entered with a dance, and left with a Parle-G dipping contest. 

Yet outside these sessions, our “connection time” became sacred–  endless frisbee games, shared cheese-and-crackers and chocolate chip protein bars as snacks, a food-tech baking class I took, and conversations that started as small talk but grew into something so much more real.

However, my most bumpy ride (and quite literally) on the trip, was at Belair National Park Day.  It hailed for the “second time in 22 years”, according to our instructor. We were drenched, covered in mud, and cold beyond reason.  My highlight for the week? The fact that  I fell head-first off a bridge and into a creek while mountain biking, ate potentially the worst self-cooked “butter chicken” of my life (it contained no chicken), tried (and failed) to successfully play a game of Mafia, and laughed in a huddled circle until we stopped feeling cold anymore. 

With our last challenge being a huge city-wide scavenger hunt, we spent the day doing everything from  TikTok dances, to group pictures, and much more – surviving on double-chocolate muffins and blackberry apple juice. Our week ended with a dance party – one of the saddest ones I’ve ever attended. And when the song “See You Again” played as our farewell, we all broke down. 

“How can we not talk about family when family’s all that we got?”
Tears, laughter, and tight final hugs filled the room as we stood in a circle– flushed faces from every continent, every story, every moment that had made this week exactly what it was. Because that’s exactly what it had become. GAIL turned from being random people from too many places, into people who eventually, and inevitably, became family. The people we met, grew close to, or even just shared our muffled laughter late at night  with– became part of something that felt bigger than distance, time, or schools.

By the end, we weren’t delegates, or even representatives – we were connected threads. GAIL didn’t just teach us leadership; it showed us what it means to belong, to care, to truly see others – and it will always hold a very special place in my heart. From waking up at 4 am more times than I can count, to travelling over 24 hours, to connecting with people across the world, or eating all the Australian fast food we could – this “social experiment” was, by far, my favourite. 

Writen by Tisya Kanwar, a journalist at The Woodstocker

Edited by Priyanshi Poddar and Trishana Panchagatti, Co-Editors at The Woodstocker