KAITUNA CAMP
Recently we, room 14 went to Kaituna camp. Mr and Mrs Depass had kindly there land to NZ and we were going to spend three days there. Many of the parents kindly offered to take us there. I went with Zoë, Amy, Ralph and Daniel with my Mum, Belinda.
The first destination was Hawswell quarry. There we taught
about the hardness the men who worked there had to go through, the rocks and
the history of the quarry. We also had
lunch there and played tag with a chicken.
Our next destination was our camp. When we got there we all
wanted to see our tents but first we did water watch. There were two men there
called………… Together we looked at bugs,
water temperature, what's in water and lots of there cool stuff! The best part
of it was the bug watching. We learnt lots of names of bugs that we never
thought were in our streams. My favourite one was the toe biter. Most species are quite large (2 cm or more) but some of the
largest, such as Lethocerus, grow up to 12 cm, the size of your finger!
Finally
we got to look around the camp. The worst part of it was the horrible
port-a-loo! We found our tents, played a few games and settled to sleep early
because tomorrow we were turning into mountain warriors who were going to
tackle the legendary Mount Herbert!
It
was 9 when we first set out on our main adventure.
First
of all Mr Rait warned us about the pesky poison ivy and how our friend the fox
glove that grows by it will help us if we got stung. We walked through Mr and
Ms Pass land to get to the base of a hill that we would climb and then get to
the mountain.
It
was a pleasant walk with a bit of huffing; moaning collapsing and carrying
other peoples bags along the way to. I was stung a couple of times but it was
either on my clothes or it was a dead branch.
Every
so often we would stop for some information about the landscapes or a rest
where sometimes Mr Rait gave us some biscuits.
Some
of the facts Mr Rait gave us were on Horopito otherwise known as the pepper tree and we soon found out why.
Sneakily Mr Rait made us try it saying that the Maori came down this track and
believed it was a good sign and would chew on it and make a wish. He said it
tasted like peppermint. So on three we all ate it. Many spat it out like me but
few swallowed it and made a wish. Another one was hugging a tree to find out
how old it was.
When
we got to the top everyone was knackered and to get up our spirits up we got
given chocolate by Mrs Follero. Then we trooped down again and filled our water
bottles and went into the disgusting long drop!
The
next day we played the games like the island race where we had to get to the
other side without falling off our sheets of paper. My table, which was Something Nice won!
We
also made up chants with our table because the parents made up dynamite that
went like this:
We
are dynamite
Don't
mess with dynamite
If you mess with dynamite
It goes tick tick tick tick
Boom dynamite
Boom boom dynamite.
We made something that went like this:
Boys: Yeah it's hot in here there must be something nice in
the atmosphere
Girls:
Boys: Yeah it's hot in here there must be something nice in
the atmosphere
Girls: Lolly pop lolly pop oh lolly lolly pop
Camp was cool. I really enjoyed it and my favourite part was
all the games.
Gabrielle Baird
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