Aidan's School Camp

Hi, it's Aidan. Every year, most schools in New Zealand will organize a school camp for the students which is basically like a really long field trip.(three days) I went on camp a few weeks ago. We did a lot of cool activities which included abseiling, raft making, kayaking, bush walks, burma trails, and hiking up a mountain. My whole class got to come and we all had a great time.

First, we went to Pa Harekiki, or "Village of Flax" in Maori. It was pretty much a village of flax, with rows and rows of flax bushes lined up sort of like houses. When we got there, we learned about the flax and went up to the hilltop fort, called a Pa. Although it is currently uninhabited and many of the buildings inside of it are recreations it was still very cool. The Maori used to live there a long time ago.

Here is our first guide standing beside a tiki. A tiki is a Maori carving, often of a god or an elder. I think this particular tiki is supposed to help the flax grow. Maori often used flax to weave and make baskets and decorations like flowers. They ate the seeds, too.

This is a recreation of a Maori hut.

Here is my friend Jacob, standing at the gates of the pa.

Here is Leah and me in the window of the hut. How did she get there?

We then wove flax flowers with the assistance of an instructor. This is mine.

After the pa, we went and hiked up Mount Pureora. It was a very long walk and my friend Joel threatened to die.

Here is some very nice green foliage.

Here we are at the top! That was quick!

We drove to the Pureora Lodge and set up our sleeping bags on our beds in the cabins where we stayed and had dinner. We had spaghetti. It was very good. For dessert we had home baked goods and toasted marshmallows. The marshmallows were pink and not exactly to my liking. After it got dark, we did the burma trail. The burma trail is a short bush walk where you hold onto a rope because it's dark and adults try and jump out and scare you. It was very fun, but not very scary, unfortunately. This was the end of our first day. We went to bed.

The next day, for breakfast we had toast...

... with spaghetti! It was surprisingly good. People here normally have this.

Here are some somewhat blurry pictures of the building that we stayed in.

This is the cafeteria with Josh and Jack stealing the home-baked goods.:)

After breakfast, we walked into the Pureora forest. It was like a bush walk. Here is a photo of the lush plants around us.

Here I am climbing a tree with Cohan. Unfortunately, my camera died after that so I don't have any photos of me kayaking, abseiling, raftmaking, mountain biking, or on the paddleboat.

We were gone for three days and two nights. There was lots to do and it was all fun. When we got back to school I felt very tired and excited to go home. We didn't do any work for the next hour and mostly just played outside until our parents picked us up. Bye for now!