Millions of feelings were in me at once; the nerves dancing around in my tummy, the excited feeling making me want to jump up and down. It was a cold, misty morning with dark grey clouds loaming above us, with rain jammed into them, waiting to pour down. The year 6’s were about to head off to Camp Kaitawa. It was a week jammed packed with adventures. The pouring rain, gigantic mountains to climb, mud oozing on us in the caves, peaceful, shimmering waterfalls, smoke and the wonderful smell of nachos. What a exhausting, exciting week!

The pounding of rain hit the roof of the cars as we arrived at Camp Kaitawa. The cars were as dirty as a pig after it had rolled in the mud. The excitement was still buzzing inside us like bees as we jumped out of the car and into the cold, chilling rain. We unpacked in the horrible rain and then changed. The teachers announced that we were going on a walk to Green Lake, Surge Chamber and the Power Station in the RAIN!! “Oh how great” So off we had to go in the cold, freezing rain! The walk actually was quite fun, it would have been even more fun if it hadn’t didn’t rain. The Green Lake was quite pretty with the ducks and the Power Station was interesting but for some people the Surge Chamber was hard for them because of the slope. I think it was more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

We chatted nosily as we walked up to the start of the big walk. It was today that we were going on the biggest walk of all, the Ngamoko walk. It was a 6 hour walk. Some people were looking around nervously not sure if they could walk this big walk. First stop was by this massive tree called the Rata tree. It was 800 to 1000 years old! As we walked we got moro bars, barley sugars and scroggin. When we arrived at the end of the track, the groups that were ahead of us congratulated us. “Yeah we made it to the end” I had thought. Everyone had a look of pleasure on their faces. Who wouldn’t if you had just finished walking a 6 hour walk. We went back to camp really tired, but of course it wasn’t over yet, we now had to write prayers in our groups. Today was a challenging day, but what would you except, it is Camp Kaitawa.

Once again we had breakfast and got our day packs ready for our trip to Michael Noonan’s grave. When we arrived we found that there was also a 9 month baby grave there too. There was also another grave there too, but I couldn’t read the name on the head stone. After that we went caving in the Onepoto caves. Some of us had headlamps. We went into heaps of caves. At one point we had to get onto our knees and crawl, another we had to climb down a ladder. We also had to climb a big steep rock that was slippery. The caving was my favourite walk because I really liked the challenge and most of all I liked getting really muddy.

We went on two walks. They were both easy walks. One was a 5 minute walk. It was a peaceful walk with beautiful sightings of waterfalls. The other one was a hour walk to a lake. There was a hut at the end of the walk. In the hut we had lunch. It was another hour walk back to the cars. It was dinner time but we weren’t going to have dinner made for us we were going to make it ourselves! We were put into groups before we left to camp. In my group was, Lisa, Riley, Jacob and of cause me! The sky was filled with smoke as we made nachos. All the groups had to make their dinner on a fire.

When we had made our mince. We poured it into the middle of our nachos chips. We gobbled our nachos up greedily. It was so yum thanks to Miles. The best nachos that I have ever tried in my life. When everyone had finished eating their dinner we cooked marshmallows on one big fire. Next we had a challenge to do, the challenge was to design a human aeroplane. Three groups won and one of the groups was my group. It was so much fun!!

The room was full of noise as we ate our last breakfast at Camp Kaitawa. We were all going home. We then had to pack up our suitcases or bags and clean up. Soon we were on the road heading off to Home!! Along the way Terina and I played Uno. Our first stop was at a park. It was there that we had our lunch and a yummy lunch it was, because we had hot chips. Some of us even had chip butties! We had a play in the playground until we headed off on to the road again. I had a little snooze on the way but no one really noticed until Terina woke up with me leaning on her and told me to get off her.

We had lollipops to eat on the way. The next stop was at a dairy. It was there that we had a ice block each. I had a calcium chocolate ice block. When we finally arrived at school we saw Kaitlin and some other people on road patrol. It was probably their first time doing it because they were only year 5’s. As I ran towards the school grounds I saw Kelly walking out of class. I gave her a big hug then went to collect my suitcase. Soon I saw mum and gave her a hug. This camp was a awesome challenge and I really loved it. I bet the year 5’s will have a awesome time just like we did!