Greer's Work

Here is my Camp Recount. Enjoy!!!

Camp Motutapu By Greer

2010- Syndicate D and Room 28

We arrived bright and early at 8.15 on Monday morning. Dad who was coming to camp with me helped me carry my bags in because they were really heavy and I think I was still half asleep. I handed in my biscuits and found my friends who were also really excited. It was the day we’d all been waiting for Syndicate D and Room 28 were going to Camp Motutapu.

We arrived at Rangitoto and walked across apparently the shortest bridge connecting two islands. Then we carried on with our two hour uphill walk. Tabetha and I talked the whole way and finally we arrived.

It was boiling hot when we stepped foot into the camp. We had our lunch, had a safety talk and got allocated to dorms. I was in a small room connected to dorm 4. In my small dorm were Tabby, Amber and Abby.

There were lots of activities at camp but these are some of my favourites. One of the activities I really enjoyed was Rock-climbing which was also combined with Abseiling. First we had to do abseiling which I was really nervous about. I crept up the Mole Hole, which is in the centre of all the rock-climbing walls. There were lots of ladders but finally I got up the top and hooked myself onto a rope so I couldn’t fall over the side.

It was then my turn, I hooked myself on then I slowly lowered myself. I spread my feet apart and I was in mid air abseiling like a professional. Something was yet to come though, I was about halfway down when my hair got stuck. It pulled and pulled until Logan who was our instructor fixed the ropes. Then I sped down the rest of the way and jumped off.

I then did rock-climbing which I am usually not very good at because I am slightly scared of heights. I went up “The Slab” quite easily despite a few struggles along the way. I then moved on to “Vertical One” I had attempted this before and got more than ¾ of the way, I was determined to beat this. So at Electives I climbed all the way to the top on Vertical One. I was so proud of myself I had really achieved my goal.

Another activity I really enjoyed was sailing. First we had to put our wetsuits and lifejackets on. Then we headed down to the beach for instructions on how to sail. It was a lot easier for me because I have sailed before at waterwise last year. I went in the optimist with Tabby and we managed, well sort of. We sailed round the buoys with no problems apart from the nosediving, which made almost a bath in the boat. Our turn was almost over so we started coming back into shore. Suddenly we tipped over into the freezing cold water which we later discovered had stingrays and sharks in.

Later on we found out what had gone wrong, we had turned the tiler but we didn’t change sides quick enough. After we had capsized I quickly swam to the back of the boat while Tabetha swam to the front and almost got hit by the boat. It was really nice weather that day so the swim back to the beach was somewhat refreshing. I then did sailing as one of my electives but the wind was really strong and the water was very choppy so it wasn’t quite as fun.

Probably the best activity was the flying kiwi, this is when you are connected to a rope by the harness and other people run down the hill holding the same rope you are attached to. The person with the harness on then proceeds to go flying 15 metres in the air. After you stop swinging you are dangling in mid air. The rope people walk backwards with the rope and slowly the person is lowered down. It was actually pretty scary and I screamed and screamed claiming the title of second loudest screamer of all people that did the flying kiwi on camp. To prove this the instructors wife could hear the scream all the way from inside their house.

Survivor was also great fun. I was on the yellow team, because the people in our team said it was easier to start on. We were in the competition against 28C who we all thought we could beat. Our first activity was the jigsaw puzzle followed by the cargo net, beams places on small logs, a swing over a muddy stream which you had to pull on a rope to make it work, up and over the tyres, over and under the hurdles, climb up to a big platform standing on someone’s back, then we had to use a hook to transfer a watering can to a different platform, criss cross through the tyres, we went down to the muddy pond to collect water so the gate would open, over the courses across the pond, over a big turning wheel, through the big tyres hanging from a frame and finally we were back home at our base.

In the end we won by about 10mins. The fist chance I had to really be close to the water was while collecting water from the pond so the gate could open. I slipped and fell straight into the dirty, muddy pond. So I helped my team in the water by passing the containers of water to them. I finally got out of the pond after my shoe got stuck when I did get out I had a mini bog on my sneaker.

After the competition ended most of us jumped into the pond and got covered in mud. We then walked down the equally as muddy creek which came up to our waists. The creek led to the duck poo pond. We were so muddy and dirty we actually washed off in the duck poo pond. We went up to Mr C and gave him a very muddy hug, he then had to go and change his shirt. Meanwhile we washed up with the fire hose. Later on we all had a shower with lots and lots of soap.

Camp Motutapu was really fun and exciting. It was a great experience and I would love to come back again any time. The activities were really full on and challenging, but so much fun. It was really cool having Electives because we got to do our favourite activities again. I also liked the camp concert because it was really entertaining. The only bad part about camp was that I got a really painful ear infection. The activities were so tiring that when I got home I had a really long bath and went to bed really, really early.

We recently studied Causes in Our World. I choose the SPCA, here is my report.

The SPCA

You probably already know a lot about the SPCA. It was formed by English settlers to enforce animal acts and to stop animal cruelty in NZ.

They are amazingly well known throughout NZ, but you’d be surprised that they receive no government funding unless there is an emergency such as a drought. The SPCA attends to over 20,000 animals per year. Providing animals in their care with food, water and shelter these animals would have been otherwise homeless or mistreated animals.

As they are not government funded they run a few businesses inside the organisation. One of these is a cattery another is a pet supplies store and they run their own pet insurance company to. They also sell the rescued pets if they pass a test to see if they can behave in a family environment.

You may be wondering what you can do to help. You can do one of the easiest things, look after your pet so the SPCA does not have masses of pets come in their doors. You can also help by supporting HOPE a monthly pledge programme, putting pet food into the bins labeled at supermarkets. You could support cupcake day or maybe even consider adopting from the SPCA.

If you see someone being cruel to an animal call the SPCA and they will come and inspect the state of the animal or animals being badly treated.