Camp Waitomo

Day 3 at Camp Waitomo arrived and we got ready and had breakfast. Then we went to the Woodlyn Park show. That was interesting because the man was talking about the farmland and his mother. The part I liked about it most was when he showed us how to get up tall trees in the old days. The funniest part was when he chucked a foam axe and I thought he chucked a real one at us. It was cool. When he pulled a yellow string an animal came. It was cool how the animals knew to come and where to go. My favourite animal was when the dogs came in and when they got some sheep. He said his dream was going to the USA. Then we went back to camp.

By Rueben

CAMP HIGHLIGHT.                                     

“It’s time to have some fun at camp Waitomo”!!!

The year 7’s, year 8’s and the teachers/parent helpers got onto the bus and drove off to the Waitomo Caves. The bus driver stopped in Taupo so we could have some lunch and have a toilet break. We stopped in Otorohanga to look in the kiwi house. We stayed at the kiwi house and did a quiz. I found the kiwi house quite fascinating because they are endangered animals so it was cool to see them in real life. There was a male and a female in the enclosure.

We got back onto the bus and drove the rest of the way to Waitomo Top 10 Holiday Park. Once we found our cabins we sorted out who sleeps where. In my cabin there was Edith, Dahlia, Rhian, Chloe and Rhiannon. Later that day we had a play in the playground, some dinner which was a delicious lasagne made by Mrs W.S, a swim in the cold pool and the hot tub and had a shower. A really yum dessert was brought to the table, a self-saucing pudding with cream, “YUM”. After a good nights sleep and a yum breakfast we headed off to Stubbs Farm to do some caving, abseiling and the covenant which is like a treasure hunt. My highlight of that day was caving because it was my first time doing it and it was a new experience. The abseiling was fun as well, as was the covenant but the caving was still the best. After a nice lunch, shower, dinner, dessert, and a sleep for the second night we were all ready to go to the Woodlyn Park show. Billy Black was a very funny guy who, I thought spent all of his time training his farm animals and setting the stage up because it was very cool. We drove to the Discovery Centre and learnt about cave creatures and the formations as well as glow worms.

“Now its time for a bushwalk with ‘Nigel’ (a.k.a Mr Easson)

We went on a Ruakuri bushwalk.

It wasn’t tiring but I did enjoy it.

Then we got dropped off at a dry glow worm cave. We walked down the track and looked formations of stuff made by the rocks. Then we walked over to a platform where we got on a boat and looked at the glow worms in pitch black darkness.

By the time people were ready for showers dinner was ready so we ate our dinner, pudding and had supper.

Day 4 has arrived and we went to a wet adventure cave. That one was my overall highlight of the whole week because we got to climb up waterfalls. It got a bit deep (which was fun) and we had to turn off our lights that were on our helmets.

 

By Ella

Camp Waitomo

My highlight at Waitomo was when we went into the caves at Stubbs Farm. It was the best time of the whole week at camp. Especially when we had to get all muddy, that was the best part of caving even though the water was cold and all that. But it was worth it because once I saw the glow worms it just blew me away. Once I saw the glow worms for my very fist time I thought it looked like the night sky and that it was a very good memory to remember. Getting all muddy, well I thought that it was fun because that meant I got to have a shower. The showers I went to were the best because they were all the right temperature for me. But there was a very particular cave that really caught my eye and that was the Ruakuri Cave which means Two dog cave. It was the best because you had the spiral walkway with the lights on the side of it. In the middle of the spiral was a huge rock and it had water coming down on top of it. There was a test where we had to look like a stalagmite, a stalactite and as a glow worm. It was fun but also was the part when we got to walk in the dark while holding the bar. I felt really scared but it was fun. And that was my highlight at camp.

By Danielle A

Camp Waitomo

Camp Waitomo was the best camp I have been on so far.

The highlight of my experience at Waitomo was the Huhunui cave. We had to wear a helmet with lights on it and we got to wear a big brown jumper like thing.

  Huhunui cave was a really fun cave because we got to climb up a mini waterfall. Before we started climbing up the waterfall I could feel and hear my heart beating because I was so nervous, but once we started climbing up that mini waterfall my nerves went away. I felt really adventurous almost like Bear Grylls but we were doing a lot more smaller and less scary stuff. Manraj was a little bit ahead of me on the waterfall but she would sometimes stop until I caught up to her. Something that was on my mind after the waterfall was that I could climb a waterfall without a harness and a rope but when I was doing abseiling with a harness and two ropes I was a lot more nervous!

 Once we finished climbing the waterfall we went into a little cave, and part way through that cave there was a small gap we had to go through, and then there was a slippery wall we had to climb up.

When we were walking through water in the cave I would force myself to not look up because I was scared I was going to see wetas and spiders. I would also make sure that I didn’t look down into the water because I was worried I was going to spot some eels. I hate eels because they remind me of snakes.

In one part of the cave we had to walk in complete darkness and we had to grab on to the persons shoulders who was in front of you. Manraj was in front of me and Baani was behind me. Baani kept dancing and moving me around which was making me a little bit nervous, then finally we got to turn on our head lights. To me the worst part of Huhunui cave was walking through the darkness with Baani dancing around behind me.

A little while after that we stopped about half way through the cave and sat on some rocks. We drank some nice hot raro and we got to eat some biscuits.

When we made it through the cave and reached the outside there was still some more walking to do. We had to walk through bush and a pond and then before we reached the van we drove to the cave in we had to walk on a muddy creek. We had to be careful where we were walking because if you took a wrong step you could fall into the mud.

Even though going through the cave, bush, pond and muddy creek made me crave a nice warm shower back at the camp, Huhunui cave is still the highlight of my experience at Waitomo.

By: Rhian

The Woodlyn show

I trooped inside the old farm doors.

Yeah!

I’ve been waiting to go to this show for ages and now we are finally here.

I sit down in the old worn out chair and wait for the show to begin. I’m very excited.

Billy runs on stage. He’s wearing an old country hat and some red bands and looks like an old country bloke.

“Good morning!” he yells and gets into it straight away.

The first thing he does is talk about what people had to doto set up farms a long time ago. It was very interesting. He talked about the tools and about the way they worked.

He showed us how they cut down the trees to make way for the farmlands.

Billy cut into a tree with his axe and then rammed the wedge into the tree and climbed onto it.

I was a little scared that it would break but he was a professional. Billy grabs the next wedge and rams it into the tree while still standing on the first wedge and with a big leap he was on the next ledge. Now he was near the top of the tree with has axe. He started to cut the tree and then he said that his axe was very slippery. Suddenly his axe hurtles towards us from the top of the tree. Luckily it was just a foam axe from behind the tree. Jason who was sitting beside me, let out a scream and I laughed it was hilarious!

That was my absolute favourite thing of the show and of the whole camp.

To finish it off he puts gun power in a metal tube and throws it on the ground and with a giant KABOOM! The show finishes with a bang!

By Danielle

CAMP WAITOMO

20-24 May 2013

MY MAIN HIGHLIGHT of camp WAITOMO WAS THE SPA!!. IT WAS NICE AND HOT BUT THE FIRST THING WE HAD TO DO WAS JUMP INTO THE VERY VERY COLD pool . I wasn’t keen to jump in as I don’t really like cold water. We had to stay in the cold pool for 1 minute. It seemed like 10 minutes. THEN AS SOON AS THE TIME was up we could get out and jump into the nice, hot spa pool. When we got in the Spa my body had a little stinging felling. It felt a little weird but eventually it went away. over all it was nice, hot and relaxing and that was my highlight.

By Clayton.    

Camp Waitomo

My highlight at camp was going in the wet and humongous caves. The reason why I liked these cave was because we could get wet, muddy and splash each other. The other thing I liked about those caves was when we were right in the middle of the cave. We ate some cookies and had hot Raro. It gave me some energy to finish the cave. When we were coming out I got muddy, dirty and smelly because we had to past a swamp! It was great because I love getting dirty! It had wooden planks to walk past it. I was nearly about to fall off but I managed to save myself. My shoes got very smelly and that was my camp highlight.

By Amrit

Way to go Maia!!

Well done to Maia who has been selected to represent NZ in the BMX world champs. We are right behind you and we are sure you will do well.

GO MAIA!!!!!

Visiting the Hastings Art Gallery

On Wednesday 19th June Room 10 visited the Hastings Public Library. Once we had found some books we went next door to the Art Gallery. We checked out the display celebrating Radio New Zealand. Weta workshops (who are involved with The Hobbit Movies) had made some cool looking radios. Here we are standing beside our favourite designs.

Giorgia likes the Grandma's knitting basket radio

 Danielle, Alys, Rhiannon and Tyrone like the Maori radio

 Manraj, Darshini, Alan, Anupreet and Rhian liked the Bush radio

 Ethan liked the BBQ radio

 Alo, Sukhmaan and Riley like the Rugby radio

 Clayton liked the Military radio

 Kruz, Maia, Blake, Alex, Sophie and Dee like the Pavlova radio

 Ella liked the Fish 'n' Chips radio

Amrit likes the Splitting the Atom radio

Which one do you like?