Te Wera Camp

On the first Monday and Tuesday of the term, Makahu School went to Te Wera Camp. We got picked up in the school bus and travelled to Te Wera to meet up with Huiakama.
When we arrived, Huiakama wasn’t there so we played on the adventure playground. It was cold but we were soon warm with all the running around we did! We played “stuck in the mud” for a bit, but then the Huiakama kids arrived.
Mr Chapman called us all into the dining area and we all found a seat at the tables. Mr Chapman introduced us to the owner of the camp, Carolyn. She talked for a bit about the rules and boundaries and then Mr Chapman told us what we were going to do today. The older kids were doing river study with Mr Archer from the Taranaki Regional Council. The younger kids were doing archery.
When Mr Archer arrived the little kids were going down to the field to the targets. Mr Archer spoke to us for a little while then he told us what we were going to do.
He said “You have to hold this sieve in the water beside the bank and get this scrubbing brush and scrape the side of the bank with. All the little creatures go into the sieve. Pull the sieve out and don’t look into it! I always tell myself to not look but I still do! Don’t look because you won’t see anything! Bring your sieve over to the white tray, hold the sieve over it upside down and hit it with the back of the scrubbing brush. Give it a really good whack!”
We all laughed at that!
Soon we were walking down to the stream. We had got into groups of four. My group was Megan, Samantha, Koren and I. When we got there, the groups spread out along the river. One person went down to get the water, they brought the water up, filled the bug box. Then another person went down with the sieve and brush, brought it up and we whacked the sieve hard!
One group got a crayfish and a fish! I’m not sure what the fish is called. My group got a weird wormy thing. It was a yellowish colour and with ting hairs on its tail. It was fat and liked curling up. Koren loved it. NOT! She thought it was really weird.
When we went back to camp it was lunch time. We all had lunch at the tables. There were a few wasps hanging around. Luckily no one got stung. We all played on the adventure playground.
After lunch we played Predator in the arboretum. I was a dog and I could eat anyone, whether they were green or orange. But I had to keep away from MAN and RABIBIES. I had 2 lives to start with but in the end I had 6! Dogs didn’t have to go to food places but we had to find water. Connie and Kristal were dogs too. We only found 2 waters each when we had to find 3. Luckily Kristal and I didn’t see MAN and RABIES.
We went back to the camp and the little kids went of to see bushman Bob. Us older kids went up to the dining area. When we got there we were split into groups. One group went of to do Team Building while the rest of us went to do archery. I was in the group that went to do archery first.
At archery we got into pairs. My pair was Koren. At first I kept shooting the arrow over the target, but soon I started to hit the target. I even got a bulls-eye once! Callum got 2 bulls-eyes!
After archery we went over to the team building. We passed the others on the way. They were going to archery. Kelly yelled out,” the walls the hardest!” The wall? What’s the wall? We were soon to find out.
We saw Miss P waving us over. We went round the corner and smack dab in front of us was a tall pole. Miss P explained that we had to get the tyre over the pole in 5 minutes. Callum’s team didn’t get it over but my team did!
We picked Megan up and pushed her up the pole and then gave her the tyre. She had to stretch really hard and twice she dropped it. Finally she got it over and it came sliding down the pole. We couldn’t get it up again so Chris grabbed it and threw it up in the air. It flipped once in the air and then came down on the pole. He did it again but this time it came off.
The next thing we did was the balancing board. We had the same teams and we had to jump on to it without the end touching the ground. Finally Megan got on to the board and then the rest of us got on quite easily. At the end even Chris got on.
The last thing we did was the wall. It was really, really hard. We had to lift the person over the top and onto the platform at the top. My team picked up Brendan first. We eventually got him up. It was so hard that Chris had to help us up. Finally we were all up. We all got down again, and ran of to the dining area. Then we went home.


On Tuesday we went back to Te Wera camp. We were going to spend the whole day with Bushman Bob. I couldn’t wait. The older kids all crowded into the hall and Bushman Bob spoke to us for a little while. He was talking about bush survival. After that we started walking down to the place where we were going to build bivvies, the little kids got to go on the motor bike but we had to walk. When we got to the place Bushman Bob told us to use our imaginations and pretend that you’d been in a plane crash and you had to build a shelter. He then split us into groups and showed us the places that we were going to build our bivvie. My team was, Koren, Angus, Connie, Brendan and Megan. Our place to build bivvies was a sort of sheltered clearing with lots of Manuka around us. We had half an hour to build our bivvies. Bob came after fifteen minutes and had a look at ours and then went away again. Soon thirty minutes was up and we all gathered at the first group’s bivvie. It was in the bush and it was quite sheltered by all the trees and had natural shelter form the southerlies. He spoke for a bit and then told the team to get into the bivvie; he was going to do the water scale and the Richter scale. First he poured water all on the top of the bivvie and then he poured in on the south side where there was an opening because the team had forgotten about the southerlies. The people there got wet. Their frame was pretty strong but if the wind blew their tarpaulin would be blown off. Their score was 7 out of 10. The next group was in a big clearing with not many trees around. Their bivvie wasn’t very stable and when Bon poured the water it all gathered up in the middle and if there was lots of rain then the middle would have fallen down because on litre of water weighs 1 kg. When he did the Richter scale the whole thing fell down. Then we went to ours. We were ok on the water test and the Richter scale, so ours was 8 out of 10. We won!
After that we had lunch. Some of the kids finished their lunches fast and since there were some toadstools nearby they got stick and started to bash them.
After lunch Bushman Bob showed us were his campsite was. He showed us a winter bivvie and a summer one. He said they had been there for about 4 years. Then he showed us his survival tool belt. He named each thing and told us what it was for.
When we had done that, we all trooped out of the forest and over to the big hill. Puffing and panting we all made it up. I had a 1 minute rest and some water while I waited for some others to go up the hill. Then they came and we set off along the track. When we got into the bush Bushman Bob took off somewhere and we carried on. When we got to the end of the track we all stopped and some kids sat down. Bob joined us holding a fern. He said it was called “mamaku”. We had a piece each. It tasted like cucumber and was really gooey.
After that we went back to the start of the bush track (we saw a billygoat along the way!) Bob showed us a snare and told us about it. Then he showed us a map and taught us some navigation. We could see the little kids playing down at the camp.
Once that was done we tramped back down the hill and back to camp. The little kids were there and we all said thank you and goodbye.
We were off home!