Whangara Camp Experience
On Monday the 7th March 2016 my class 78 OD, 78 BA and 78 SN went on camp to Whangara Marae. The 3 other classes 78 ED, 78 MC and 78 BR would go on Wednesday when we leave. We left at about 9 am and got there around 10 am. The first thing we did was get all our gear off the bus. When we did that we put them under a tree and sat down in our 6 groups, in a line. The groups went from 1 to 6 and I was in group 1. The person in charge Mr Naden told us what we had to do at the Powhiri which we would have just afterwards. When that was done we got organised so that the girls were in the middle and the boys were around them so that we could “protect” them, in case there was a shady character trying to steal them.
After the powhiri was over we got our bags back and we chose whether we wanted to sleep in the big marae or small one. Me, Riley and Stefan (my friends) all went in the small one and chose mattresses next to each other but just before the first night Stefan moved to the big one because there was a free space and he likes their mattresses more than ours. We got out our sleeping bags and pillows and put them on the mattresses. We are not allowed to have food or drinks in the meeting houses (which are the maraes) so we put our lunch boxes and baking in the dining room to the right of both meeting houses. After that we had a bit of free time. I played cricket with my other friends Oli, Liam, and Jackson. If you are thinking we are not allowed to play games on a marae there is a little area where we are not allowed to play games but outside there is a paddock like place where we are allowed to play games.
Then Mr Naden blew a whistle and we all lined up in our groups under a shady tree. Mr Naden said that we would start our rotations which were when you either do scavenger hunt, weaving, art, science (which is looking in the rocky shore for crabs), surfing and boogie boarding. My group did scavenger hunt first, weaving second and art third. We did 3 on Monday. We had 1 hour for each. On Tuesday my group did Surfing, Science and then Boogie Boarding. I did surfing for the first time ever! I actually stood up for a couple of seconds but then someone came out of nowhere and wiped me out. I enjoyed boogie boarding a lot because you could just enjoy yourself and catch some waves. On Wednesday we had breakfast cleaned up the whole marae, greeted 78 ED, MC and BR with a powhiri and left on the bus. I had a really good time.
