White Water Rafting Experience

Recount on White Water Rafting

As the sun rose, colours of red, pink and purple filled the morning sky. Cabins began to awake and a thick cloud of excitement for the unknown filled the air. I couldn’t contain my excitement because my next activity was none other than the wet and wild adventure of white water rafting.

After a hearty breakfast, we walked for about ten minutes from our camp to The White River Rafting Adventures centre. There Garth, the manager, introduced us to the crew, explained the rules and what to wear.

Screams of laughter echoed through the small changing rooms as we struggled to put on the tight wetsuits and got familiar with our new, rounded, bouncy ball like padding. We all looked like we had gained about ten kilograms and most of us felt like it too. We were all wearing a polar fleece underneath our wetsuits and a big red life jacket on top of that. On our heads we wore a helmet and on our feet a pair of cute little water boots.

“ Right get into the buses”, an instructor yelled over all our chatter and no one could control the exhilaration, the collision of children resulted in a pile up outside the bus’ doors.

The rush out of the bus was much the same as the first. It was so fast that it felt like we were in a fast flowing river already. We were told to line up and boy did that happen quickly, tallest at one end, shortest at the other. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5”, an instructor numbered us off into groups. The instructor in charge of my group was the tall Gordon and in my group were Alex, Josh, Alle, Millan, Mrs.Beattie and my teacher, Mr. Williams.

After carrying the raft down the small hill, the time had finally come! WE WERE RAFTING and I was even more ecstatic because I had the very best seat in the house, the front.

It was time, our first rapid was approaching. It was very shallow so we had to bounce up and down while Gordon pushed. After we made it over we realised that we had masses of paddling ahead of us.

As we heard the next rapid approaching we all paddled as hard as we could. “And Stop”, shouted Gordon. We all obeyed and sat very still, thoughts of anticipation flooding our mind. When suddenly the rapid had us in its grasp. It threw us around and rebounded us up and down like balls. At the front it even hurled bombs of water at us. But we fought back and stabbed it with our paddles. As if at a flick of a switch it’s energy ran out. But our batteries were still fully charged so we eagerly paddled on to meet our next rival.

We battled many more rival rapids and pretty soon we came across another kind of rival, the other mean, keen rafters. As we approached one another world war three broke out. Spears, bombs and bullets of water flew everywhere. When the water hit us it seeped into our clothes as if to symbolize blood. But time and time again this was, unfortunately, not a battle we won. Now we were beginning to wear out.

After our water war we needed to ice our bruises but since we didn’t have any we settled for a swim in the freezing cold water. Even though we did this twice The relaxation didn’t wear off and I would have enjoyed doing this more.

At some point, sadly, our water world had to come to an end and after a few more rapids it did. We lifted up the raft and held it on our heads, using this technique we carried it up the hill and loaded it up onto the trailer. Finally after we got back to the rafting centre we got changed into our clothes and walked back to camp.

I thoroughly enjoyed white water rafting and one day hope to go rafting again on a higher river grade. If you ever get an opportunity to experience rafting I suggest that you don’t think twice and seize it with both hands you’ll never regret it.

The Bear Hunt

"We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one..."
No, your eyes are not deceiving you.
Four 'mature' Y8s opted for the Bear Hunt on Skit Night during Camp Week. We all waited with baited breath on Thursday Night, not knowing what we were in for...
"Open the gate, close the gate..." Oh our golly goshes. The Bear Hunt had begun!
Phony accents and dramatic facials dominated the stage with many of the audience joining in with stitches from the laughter.
To no one's surprise, they came first equal, but we thought it was by far the best performance of the night!
Go Alex, Daniel, Abe and the Bear (Josh)!

Click HERE for The Bear Hunt 2009
Expect the Unexpected... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-LRRldTmmI

Here is a link to our class MOODLE page

This is where you will find loads of interesting stuff about what happening in our class

http://moodle.southwell.school.nz/course/view.php?id=978

Xbox Collaboration Project

Late in 2008, Southwell School proudly won a Microsoft Competition, earning us a state-of-the-art offer of Microsoft hardware. We chose Xbox 360 as our educational device, and this led us into the Xbox Collaboration Project. As part of this project we involved Cambridge Middle School and St Andrews Middle School to aid in the educational investigation to see if this project would be suitable for the classroom. This exciting project will develop our Collaborating and Communicating skills in relationship to the Key Competencies and our Southwell School values.

For the project we are playing the co-op game 'Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise' which involves making a garden and attracting pinatas. On a deeper level, this involves team work to improve our garden and collaboration with the other gardens from other groups, classes and schools. We all have our own group roles; Player, Leader/Organizer, Watcher, Blogger and Researcher, each with their special roles to aid the group. We are learning all about blogging while having lots of fun on the Xboxes.

Here is our link to the project using wikispaces http://moodle.southwell.school.nz/mod/resource/view.php?id=8603

Here is some student voice outlining why we are doing this cool project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gWrN1YWEJY

Camp 09

This is our class walking to the Whitewater Rafting center.All was well until TERROR the dreaded headband had dropped around our teacher's (Mr Williams's)neck DEAD ANT DEAD ANT everyone dropped to the ground and flung their arms and legs around in the air. We all had lots of fun on the rapids,. but many of us wished that they were bigger.

Later that day we abseiled down a rocky cliff face - there were a lot of screams but we all made it down in the end.

Then it was off to mountain biking. We all raced down the biggest hill unaware there was a tree at the end (no people were hurt in the making of this camp).

Tuesday's schedule started with a nice tramp into the Waipaki valley with our packs that were almost bigger than us. We crossed freezing rivers, over sharp rocks, treacherous mud and battled fearsome three headed serpents until we had finally reached the campsite (OK, the bit about the serpents weren't true, but the cutting grass made up for it). We pitched our tents just when the rain started coming down. We chucked all our thermals on, ran inside our tent and waited. Eventually the rain stopped. We ran outside and bathed in glorious sunlight. That night we cooked marshmallows (and wet socks) over the bonfire. Later that day the headband dropped and we all dropped with it hoping we didn't have to do burpies.After a hard nights sleep we were off again over the rivers and sharp rocks. We were very glad to see the last of the 'toilets', which were actually holes dug in the ground. Monster flies and much worse haunted the area.

Thursday began with the early start required for THE TONGARIRO CROSSING the moment we'd all been waiting for. We began the ascent of the Devil's highway - one of the hardest parts of the mountain. We arrived at the top red faced and puffing (apart from the teachers of course. They strolled through it without breaking into a sweat).Though after that we went for a swim in the Tokaanu hot pools.

Friday began with a sluggish start for our class as it was the last day of camp and we had to pack. We all eventually arrived back home safely, much to the relief of our parents.