Milltown to Kumara bikeride

 Milltown To Kumara Bikeride

On Tuesday 22cnd of September, Room 8 went to Milltown to do a bike ride to Kapitea reservoir for the William Pike Challenge. The whole bike ride we were doing was on the Wilderness Trail. I went in the van with lots of other people. We had to be rightly equipped in case it rained or we got lost and, unfortunately, it did rain. 

It took about an hour to drive to MIlltown. We drove through Hokitika and past Lake Kaniere. When we arrived there it was lightly raining. We put our bikes over the gate and waited in the small shelter there until everyone was ready. It was really cool because Charlie’s dad and Hamish went on a tandem for the whole bike. 

The first part of the bike was quite hard because it involved going uphill but the hill was a big zig zag so it seemed to go on for a while. I only stopped when I failed to bike across the shortcut which was grass. The reason I failed was because my tyre got stuck in a ditch in the grass. I also stopped to wait for people. 

After a long time going uphill we finally moved into the bush and biked there. It wasn’t a huge uphill on that part and we eventually got to Cowboy’s Paradise. When I arrived there everyone who got there ahead of me was yelling, “ DON’T SKID!” I was confused but I didn’t skid. Everyone then told me that a man had come out of one of the houses and started swearing and said he would kick them. Luckily adults were with us. 

We started biking again and stopped at the swinging bridge. The girls went first and someone was shaking it but I didn’t know that so I thought I was passing out. The ground below us was so far down that I thought I was just really scared. We biked off the swinging bridge and had to go up this hill that seemed to never end. It took a huge amount of effort to bike even some of it. I had to jump off my bike because it was so hard. I felt like crying because I was so tired that even walking was hard. We finally got to the top of the hill. It felt so good to bike on flat ground. 

We had a break when we got to a clearing and then kept going again. The weather conditions were not in our favour, it was still cloudy and raining a tiny bit. The part from the clearing to the Kawhaka Intake ( the place where we had lunch ) was so fun. Billie and I were going really fast because it was downhill.  There were two fords that we had to cross. The first one had gravel in it so I was worried I was going to crash into the gravel and embarrass myself in front of everyone. I made it across and found the next one even better because I got wet.  We had to do a lot of gear changing and pedal lots because it was up and downhill. When we arrived at the Kawhaka Intake Billie, Phoebe, Summer, Wairini and I had lunch in Billie’s horse float. I felt a lot more energized then I had before. 

We started biking again although some people pulled out because they were really tired. I kept going though. The next 15 minutes were boring because we were biking on a flat road with lots of pebbles. It was bumpy and long. We eventually got to the place where we got onto an interesting track again. It was fun because there were potholes with water and I went through them. Summer and I were biking and didn’t notice that one downhill had an easy way and a hard way. We both went down the hard way which meant going over loose stones and bumps really fast. 

In the end we got to the finishing point which was Kapatia reservoir. I was disappointed that we couldn’t bike to Taramakau bridge but the rest of the day was extremely fun. I want to say a huge thank you to all the parents who came and we couldn’t have done it without them!

What Now! at Shantytown

 What Now! at Shantytown

I woke up to my Mum shaking me at 10 to 6 in the morning. I then remembered why. It was Sunday and I was lucky enough to go on the What Now! show  with Room 7 and 8. We picked up Charlie on the way to Shantytown. When we arrived at Shantytown we met at the post office. It was really funny because there are these mannequins there. I looked at the mannequin and had a huge fright because I thought it was a real man. I screamed and then realized it was just a mannequin. We had about a half an hour to wait until we were told what to do next. 

Finally, Erin (  the presenter ) and her crew came in. There was Morgan (the director), Matt ( The cameraman) and another Matt who was the props and other things guy. They told us that we were going to go on the train, Erin was going to yell out hello and we would file out after her. We rehearsed once and then the man shouted out, “10 seconds” to us and ten seconds later we were live. I was so excited, I thought I would burst. The next time we went on live we all had to go behind Erin. After that, she asked a few people ( including me ) a question each. My question was what do you like about the bike tracks? I said that they were really fun to do. I was so nervous then because I knew heaps of people would be watching me.  Lily had a birthday shout out and we all sang happy birthday to her.

When we finished that part of the show, we walked to the place where we were going to play: Say it don’t spray it! We went to the Shantytown fire station. Five people were chosen. They had to say a tongue twister without messing up otherwise they were sprayed. Emma passed the first round, same with Mea but Jordyn messed up and was sprayed. A lot of foam came out of the machine and it was hilarious to watch. Lucy also messed up and it was the same with Zade. They all were foamed and then it was down to Emma and Mea. Erin told them to say the tongue twister twice through. Emma went first and only messed up on one word, Mea however messed up on three or four in a row so Emma one. 

Mea was foamed and then Erin said to Emma “ How do you feel that you’ve won?” Emma said “ Amazing!!!” Erin then said “ And how do you feel about getting foamed on live tv?” It took Emma a moment to realize what Erin meant. She screamed and yelled “ NO!” and ran off onto our audience made up of the two classes. Erin said “ You can’t get the prize if you don’t get foamed” so Emma wss sprayed. She was obviously panicking because she opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish.

We then pretended we were going to watch a movie. We lined up and started walking in. Erin had to think of an invention in thirty seconds because one of the men told her just before we went back on air. She thought of a shoe tying machine which I thought was awesome and she thought of that so quickly. Morgan was doing a hand signal to try and make us hurry up so everyone could get in but the people at the front were too slow. A minute later we were back on air and walking out of the theatre. We had to act as though the movie was terrible but I almost erupted into giggles when I was trying to act mad. 

After the movie scene we went to the gold panning area and pretended to go gold panning. Jack actually found some. The next scene was called “ Target Your Teacher!”. I really enjoyed this one. Some people were selected to throw the ball at the target if Ms Newton answered the question wrong. She answered the first three right and then the last one wrong. Karmi missed the target but Ilish hit it after and gunge poured out. Ms Newton's goggles even fell off from the force. There was so much in the bucket. The blue is all slime!

The final scene was when we all were gunged. I had so much fun getting gunged! I was cold after though.  I want to say a huge thank you to the What Now crew for making this day awesome. It was such a cool experience that I will never forget!

Whakatauki - Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori

 For Te Wiki O Te Reo Māori we had to write about a whakatauki, write when we did that and when someone in the wider world does that. I worked with Olive and Phoebe. Here is our work below.

Wild Things Spring 2020

 For the past week we read a wild things magazine and had to answer questions about the articles. My favourite article was the shark article.

William Pike Challenge - Lake Daniell Day Tramp

Room 8 Lake Daniell

On Wednesday 9th of September, Room 8 set off to tramp Lake Daniell. For the William Pike Challenge. Lake Daniell is at Lewis Pass which is on the Southern Alps. My car group was my Dad, Billie, James and Bob. It wasn’t a long way to travel because it was only one hour and 48 minutes. When we got to Marble Hill car park, I put my wig on because it was crazy hair day, raising money for the child cancer foundation. I was the only one wearing a wig but my wig was awesome because it was rainbow. At the end of the day when we were in a group after we finished tramping, just before we drove back to Greymouth Ms Kemp awarded me with Coolest Hair Of The Day which I thought was pretty funny.

Before we went tramping, we had to do some preparation. We learnt about being safe in the bush and how not to get hypothermia, the signs of it and what to do if you get it. A website we looked at was to leave no trace which meant leaving the bush how you found it and don’t litter. Some people did litter though so I picked it up. 

When we started tramping my head got itchy from my wig but I kept wearing it. I took some cool photos of my friends and I and I also got some cool photos of the rivers. The water looked really nice. I walked with Olive and Phoebe for most of the way. Olive was pretending to be a grandma which was really funny. 

It was spring so all the leaves were really nice and green and the rivers looked so pretty. There were lots of boardwalks and they were fun to cross. There weren't many hills and when there were hills they weren’t that big. It was 8.5km to the hut so we walked 17 km all together because we walked there back in one day. I really enjoyed the tramp especially because I got to do it with my classmates. The beech forest was really pretty and I can understand how you could get lost easily. It all looked the same, so if you walked off the track you wouldn’t know what direction to go back in. 

At Kōhanga Atawhai-Monsoon Nicholls Hut we ate lunch and went on the jetty. When I sat down to eat my lunch on a big tree stump, I fell backwards and screamed so lots of people looked at me so I said “ I’m fine, I’m all good!” and hoped everyone forgot about that. The lake looked really cool from the jetty. The mountains reflect on the water and it looked amazing. When we were about to leave we all signed the visitors book for the hut. The hut looked so much cleaner and better than it had been before when I last tramped there.

My feet were super sore and I had a blister in between my toes by the time we got back to the car park. We started at 10:20 and finished at about 3:45 so it took us about 5 hours and 20 minutes to walk to the hut and back. It was such a good experience to do with my class friends. It felt so good to sit down when we finished and just relax. 

I want to say a HUGE thank you to all the parents who came, transported and walked with us. I had a great time walking with Donna and Olive because we were chatting and laughing the whole time. It was really nice to hear all the parents' comments that we were a really cool group of people, we had nice manners and we were a really good group to take out of the classroom. Overall, I had so much fun and an awesome day!