Rottenrua Camp

Monday
I started packing on Saturday and finished on Sunday. I had 3 bags of clothes with zips. My sleeping bag was purple and brown. I had trouble getting all my cloths into my bag. I bought $21 with me in my wallet and it was in the pocket of my day pack. I brought my pink fluffy slippers with me in my black and yellow bag. I went to school in my mum’s car. I was really exited. When I got to school I saw two white transit vans. One of them had blue stripe on it and the other had a black stripe. They both had a white trailer on the back. Mr Chapman was loading my
stuff into the back of the back of the trailer. Soon other people started to arrive. Soon we were ready to get on the road. Then we were off to “Rottenrua” in the “Bay of Stinky”. We had lunch at a playground in Taumarunui but we had to stop when someone felt sick. After lunch we were on the road again and we played some car games like eye spy and three in a row. When we got to camp I noticed my cabin straight away because Miss Lewis had put signs up on the door. We unpacked our gear out of the two transit trailers and ran to our cabin. We made our cabins tidy and soon we were all ready for tea. We had spaghetti bolognaise and it was nice. After that we got into our pyjamas and hopped into bed for a good nights sleep.

Tuesday
I didn’t sleep well because the bed was lumpy and I was tired from travelling. First we got up and got dressed into our clothes for the day. Then Miss Lewis told us to head down to the kitchen and to bring our plates too. We had cereal (rice bubbles, cornflakes and weetbix) and toast. We also had some orange Raro for a drink. We washed our dishes in the kitchen. Then we went up to our cabins. When we got to our cabins we brushed our teeth and then had free time and chilled out for a while. We travelled in Tracey and Troy Transit to the buried village in Rottonrua. At the Buried Village we went to the museum first. We saw lots of old pictures and we saw pictures of Guide Sophia and a war canoe called a waka. We also saw lots of old things from the citizens of the eruption. We wised though the Buried Village track. The most interesting thing I saw was the remains of the Rotomahana Hotel. We finished off the trip at the gift shop and café. I bought a small rugby ball a pair of earrings and a mug with kiwi on it. Then we went back to camp for a BBQ lunch. After that we got into our togs and were off to the hydro slides at Leisure World in Tracy and Troy Transit. When we got to the place I felt so exited! Mr Chapman told us the rules and of we went. There were three different coloured hydroslides according to how hard they were. The blue one was the easiest, the red one was faster and the black one was the fastest and scariest of them all. It had two drops on it. I had lots of turns on the black one. The most daring trick I did was backwards, head first. The blue one was open to the sky, the red one just had a light roof over it but the black one was real dark in places. In the black one it was scary at first because I got a shock from the drops and it was all dark. When we had to get out Mr. Chapman paid for us to have a go on the dodgem cars because it was starting to rain outside and the go carts were outside getting wet and the track was wet too and we couldn’t go on them.
After Leisure World we went back to camp and got into clothes for Pizza Hut and we were off again in a few minutes in Tracey and Troy Transit. When we got there we had to wait for a while but then the manager came out and he showed us how to make pizzas, the big oven and fridge. It looked interesting. Then we chose a table and the manager came round and we ordered our drinks. Next we went to the serving table and chose our pizza. Then we went and sat back down and munched our pizza. I had pizza and chips. There was an ice cream machine for pudding and when I went to get my ice cream I couldn’t turn the ice cream machine off so I got really full! I went back for more chips because the ice cream was so cold.
We went home and before we got into bed we played some games like ‘grandpa’s green undies.

Wednesday
I woke up after a good night sleep and went down to breakfast. I had cornflakes and weet bix and some Raro. Then we had free time and I went down to the shop and bought some lollies. Then we went to the Rotorua Museum When we got to the museum a man came out and gave us some stickers for us to wear that had ROTORUA MUSEUM on it. The man‘s name is George and he took us inside and showed us some things about Tarawera and how volcanoes erupt then he gave as some work sheets and after that the man called George took in to movie room and we watched a movie. It was cool. After that we were finished looking in the museum and then we headed outside. When we got outside we went to the transit vans and we got our mourning tea and sat on some chairs and ate our mourning tea. Then we hopped into the transit vans and then we were on the road to Te Puia. When we got to Te Puia we got out of the transit vans and I saw a person who was going to be our guide to show us around. She took us to the Cultural show where the nga whare were. A lady welcomed us on to the marae and she chose our chief. His name was Jimmy and he was from Scotland. The challenger looked funny and I tried not to laugh. Then we had to go into to main whare were we took our shoes off and went into the whare and they performed the show about love stories and songs for us. When it was finished our guide took us to the geysers and the mud pools. When the wind blew our way we could smell the sulphur. She told us to sit on the rocks but not where the fumaroles were and they warmed our bottoms. Then we went to do some weaving and we made flowers out of flax. I made 5 flowers. After that we went back to camp grabbed our togs and travelled for half an hour to Waikite Hot Pools. The hot pools were warm. We made a friend and her name was Angel and she was from a school in Auckland. She was tiny and she is 11! Then we went back to camp ,had takeaways for tea and went to bed.

Thursday
I had woken up after a good night sleep and went down to breakfast I had weet bix and we were of to the Luge in Tracy and Troy transit. When we arrived went into the main building and we got into the gondola it was slow but still it was amazing! Well the view was. You could see Mt Tarawera! It also went very high. It was cool. When we got to the top Mr Chapman gave us a ticket for 2 rides and of we went! I put the ticket in the slot and it let me though. The luge was black and it looked like half a skateboard and half a bike. I hopped on one and the man told us to pull back and I went forward. The man said you had to pull back to go slower and let it go forward. And of I went! It was really fun. The first time I went on the luge I raced Rhys and I crashed into him! When I got to the bottom there was a chair lift to take you up the hill. I had 4 goes! It was really fun. Then we went back down in the gondola and went over to Tracy and Troy and went back to camp for the water sports on the lake. We got into our togs and we went down to the blue lake. The boat was already there but the man wasn’t. A little biscuit was already there and we sat in it. Then the man came, his name was Paul, and he hooked the biscuit onto the back of the boat and Caterina got in. She had a life jacket on. Caterina had a turn biscuiting on the lake. Then he got a bigger biscuit and three children went at the same time. I was one of them. It was really fun and bumpy. I thought I might fall off. I wanted to let go on purpose but I didn’t want to get wet and get cold. I fell off at the last minute of my first turn. I had three turns. After that Mr Chapman had a go and he fell off twice. Pat had a go and he only fell off once. When everybody had had a turn, Paul took the biscuit off and put on the water skiing equipment, Kelly, Connie and me went first but Kelly had the first go on the skis. It was really hard to stand up. And I fell of 4 times. After I had skied I got dressed and went back to the cabins and played gridiron until dinner time then I went to bed.

Friday
I woke up and said “this is the last day of camp!” And I started to pack. Then I went down to breakfast and came back up. Mr Chapman was loading our stuff into the back of the trailers. Soon we were on the road again. We started playing Car Cricket New Zealand v West Indies and New Zealand won! Brendan McCallum (Callum) was a very good bowler! After 4 hours we were at Makahu School and mum arrived we loaded our stuff into mum's car and then we were at home. I ran inside and fell on my bed. I was exhausted! So was my family!