Camp Diary

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Camp Day 1

On the 25th of September about 6:40, I arrived at a rather quiet sounding school, to find that quite a few kids were already there. Mrs McNeil had arrived and was running around trying to sort out the last minute details. I went and waited for the bus driver to put my bag in the boot area. After my gear was loaded, I took my school bag and camp concert signs over to the class, where we waited until everyone had arrived. When everyone had arrived we had a roll check, then we excitedly made our way over to the bus. I got on the bus, full of wonders about what was going to happen at my first proper camp, and sat next to Melody. 


Once we were out of town, I asked Melody, Alice and Angela if they wanted to play Tennis with the topic of countries. Tennis proved  to be a very time filling game and took us all the way to Wanganui.

When we got to Wanganui, we made a toilet/morning tea break at Kowhai Park. I was relieved to get off the bus as I was starting to feel sick.  When we got outside we were told we had 10 minutes until we had to get back on the bus again. Adrenaline pumping, everybody ran straight to the playground equipment, I went to one of the slides first. There were lots of  slides, as well as other pieces of equipment such as the flying fox or the swings.

Once our ten minutes  was finished, Mrs Mcneil came and rounded us all up, telling us it was time to go. When we were back on the bus and had left the park, Angela asked Melody, Alice and I if we wanted to play Tennis, New Zealand version we agreed to play. After a while Melody and I started to feel sick again and Angela was beating us by miles so we decided to stop the game. We kept trying to find out how far until we arrived the camp, but these attempts proved nothing, so we sat on the edges of our seats with excitement. Finally we turned off the main road and onto a road that had a big sign directing us to the campsite.

When we arrived, the bus driver unloaded all the bags. My bags were so heavy I nearly died when I had to carry them up the little hill. We already knew what cabin we were in, so we found our allocated colour. Mine was purple, the big cabin with three rooms of 4. After we ditched our bags, we went back outside to get an official tour from our cook/owner Robyn. Once the tour was over, we went and got changed into the clothes that we wanted to wear on the water slide. We then applied sunscreen, before meeting back outside the kitchen.

My group included Ali, Melody, Kaytlyn, Paris, Melissa, Lucy, Fenella, and I. Our parents were my Dad and Angela, Ali’s Mum. Our first activity was the confidence course, down by where the bus had parked. The course consisted of lots of obstacles, the first was 16 tyres that you had to run through, they were in sets of two so it was like one foot to the left, one to the the right. The next obstacle was sort of similar to a see-saw, you had to run up one side and  down the other. Then you ran a little further until you came to these big tyres that you had to climb through. Once you had gone through the tyres, you had to run through about 6 weaving poles, climb up a hip height rock wall and crawl through an army tunnel. Once you had come out of the army tunnel you had step up onto these different height wood rounds, followed by a beam. We had a few practice goes in which I got 37 seconds, then in my official go, I got 40 seconds. The record was set by a high school boy who got 22 seconds. Paris then did it facing backwards, which took forever, but she was the first ever to do it facing backwards so she still set the record.

Once we had finished at the confidence course, we went up to have lunch. We had to take our own lunch on the first day. I ate with my friends in our cabin.

After lunch, it was our turn to go on the waterslide. The waterslide was made of thick heavy polyphene. It was very long and situated on a hill. When you got to the bottom you crashed into a big pool of water. There was also a hose running down from the top. Kaytlyn and Melody had only bought one pair of sneakers, so after Mrs Mcneil’s first turn they shared her shoes. Paris was first after Mrs Mcneil, followed by the rest of us. Fenella and I stayed on for the longest, because everyone else was too cold. I thought it was a great water slide.

After we had finished on the waterslide and had gone and got changed we walked over to the foresty area, where the burma trail was located. We put helmets and blindfolds on, then T, one of our instructors, put us on the rope and told us we were free to go. There were lots of little slopes along the way and Dad made it worse by playing tricks on us, but we made it to the end. Once everyone had got to the end, T set us off again to find our way back to the start. But T was feeling cunning, and tied the end of the rope to the start, so we ended up going round and round, until he untied the end so we could finish.   

After a half hour afternoon tea break, we were scheduled to be on the low ropes course, but first we had to do some team challenges to get us fully trusting one another. For the first one we each had a jigsaw piece, which we had to use to get all the group from one side of the asphalt to the other, but the rules were no stepping on the ground and every piece always had to have someone touching it. After many tries we finally completed it, only to find we had to do a second one. For the second one we each had a piece of pipe and we had to put them together and try to get a marble from one end to the other, where it had to land in the bucket. The bucket was probably 2 metres away from the start. Once we had finished the second challenge we headed over to the low ropes course. The low ropes course had lots of obstacles, most of which you had to balance on a rope  and walk along. Since it was the low ropes course we didn’t have harnesses, so instead you had you had four people around each with their hands up to help you balance in case you fell. They were called spotters. For one of the obstacles you had one person on each end of the rope and when they got to the middle they had to pass each other. After everyone had completed the obstacles we headed down to where the confidence course was for our last challenge. In this challenge we had two platforms and a rope, which we had to use to get the whole group from one platform to the other without anyone stepping on the ground.

After we finished the low ropes and the challenges we had an hour before tea in which our group practiced our camp concert item. Then we were called to tea. For our first meal at camp we had chicken pie. I don’t normally like chicken but this was delicious. The pie also had rice in it to bulk it up. YUM!!!

Once we had finished tea, we had diary writing time. When everyone had finished writing we went down to the fire pit, where there was a roaring fire. Mrs Mcneil handed out marshmallows for us to toast on sticks. Then she asked us if we wanted to play spotlight. We all wanted to so, she told us to go and get our torches, only to find out that when we meet back outside the dining hall we would only be using Aymon’s torch.

After about 20 minutes of playing Mrs Mcneil blew the hooter to signal the game was over. We headed back to the dining hall for supper of biscuits and milo. Once we had finished we went back to our cabins and got into our  PJ’s. Then when everybody was dressed and had down their teeth, we were allowed to talk for a bit before lights out. Most of our room went into Esther's room until the teacher came. When she did come we went back to our room and snuggled down in our sleeping bags. After about 5 minutes of lying in bed Paris was like “What’s that” and I was like
“Nothing”. So then Paris made us all lie there quietly until we heard this noise. The noise was coming from something in the roof. Ali started to become scared and decided she would move next door and top and tale with Esther. Paris moved down into Ali’s bed to try and get further away from the noise, while I took no notice of it and tried to get to sleep. I did take notice of it when it started moving all around the roof, so I asked the others if they wanted to tell the teacher. Melissa, Paris and I ran out of the cabin over to the dining hall were all the parents were and told Mrs Mcneil. She said she would come over and see what it was soon, so we all walked back to the cabin. Only to find that it appeared the noise had stopped luckily it finally started up again as soon as Mrs Mcneil walked in the door. I asked if I could move into the spare bed in Melody’s room, while the other two took the mattresses of their beds and placed them on the floor in Melody’s room. In the space of a few minutes the population of their room had doubled. We talked for awhile then we slowly one by one fell asleep.

Camp Day 2

I woke around 5:20, to find a very quiet cabin in which I was the only one awake. For about 20 minutes I lay there thinking until Melissa woke up. Melissa was soon followed by Kaytlyn, Paris, Melody and Lucy. About 6:00, once we were all awake we started chatting. Then I remembered that Eshter had asked me to wake her up by jumping on her. So I walked into her room next door and jumped on her, it was her request. After that I went back to bed and started singing Utaina. Apparently my singing was too loud and really terrible, as most cabins had someone who heard it in them. After my concert, I got dressed, it looked cold so I wore my thermals as well. Once I was dressed I made my bed. Then I found out about the results of my singing spectacle, also my consequence could be losing all my lollies. I became rather upset but was comforted by my wonderful mates. I then did Paris’s hair.

After that the breakfast bell rang, breakfast was spaghetti with cereal, fruit salad and toast. I had cereal and fruit salad. Once we had finished, my  mum turned up.

Our groups first activity was the high ropes course. This bought quite a few nerves to people in the group. The first obstacle we did was one with a ladder which you had to climb up. When you got to the top you had to stand up on a ledge, SCARY!! then you abseiled down. All this time you had Ra holding your rope and 5 belayers. Our second obstacle was a rock wall, except it moved as you climbed. It was harder to get up on the ledge this time. Once you had got up on the ledge you abseiled down. Not everyone did the rock wall.

After high ropes we had some spare time so we went on the flying fox. Then it was morning tea, we went and got a bikkie, fruit and some lollies.

Once morning tea was over we had to go to the water gear shed to get all geared up for our kayaking/canoeing session. We had to put on a helmet and life jacket, grab our paddle and go down to where the kayaks were. When everyone was down by the boats, we got the option if we wanted a sit in or sit on kayak. I immediately picked sit in, because I had used a sit in when I previously played canoe polo, while most others went for sit ons. We then carried the boats down to river. After Ra instructed us about paddling and other necessary things, we finally got into the boats. There were lots of rocks in the river and I had to watch that I didn’t let my paddle hit the rocks. Ali kept getting stuck on the banks so I rescued her twice. When it was nearly time to finish I suggested a race between Fenella, Mum and I. I won by miles. After that we had to go in because the wind was picking up and the current started to get stronger.

We had been scheduled to go on the water slide after lunch, but most of the group were too cold so about 3 of us as well as mum went on before lunch. Mum went first and made a really big splash, followed by the rest of us. We had a few turns before we got too cold and went to have a shower and wash our hair.

Everybody else was eating lunch while we were in the shower, so when we went to eat people were starting to leave. After eating we went and got some lollies.

After lunch we had been meant to do the water slide but since we had done it earlier, Jess got out the code cracker box. The code cracker was sort of like orienteering, we were in groups of 3, Paris, Melody and I were one. We had a map and we had to go around the campsite and find little plastic cards that said letters. Once we had all the letters we had to figure out a code. Our code was an old rhyme with something to do with a fox.

Once we had all cracked our codes, it was afternoon tea time.

When afternoon tea was over, our group headed over to the rock climbing wall. Paris went first, I went second and so on. There were 3 different levels the easy, middle and hard. I completed all 3. I also got to go up the medium one a second time as Ali needed some support when she was doing the easy wall. I talked and helped her get to the top. Once you were at the top you had to abseil down, that was really fun. Mum and Mrs Mcneil were the belayers as you had to be at least 13 years old.


In our hour break before tea we practiced and made sure everything was ready for our item that night.

Tea was spaghetti bolognese, it was yum. After tea we did diary writing, then we had the camp concert. There were 2 food type shows, 1 men in tutus, 1 dance, and our quiz show. We were meant to beat the parents at the quiz show but they beat us.The men in tutus was really funny, Braeden and Derek did ballet, Eshter and Jordan did ballet and jazz/ hip hop and Daniel and Ryan did gymnastics. At the end the parents came running out singing YMCA, they all had wigs on. My Dad picked up the old ymca signs as well. They had changed the lyrics so that they were personalized to our class. Once the concert was over we had a quick game of spotlight before supper. Then we went to bed.

When we went to bed I wanted to trick Paris that I was asleep but I accidently fell asleep.

Camp Day 3

I woke to find that know one else was awake. I remembered that Mrs Mcneil had said if I wanted to do decorations for Paris’s birthday the following day, I had to do them today because we were going to be packing up tomorrow. In went in to the bird room and started blowing up balloons. Then I tied crepe paper strings onto the balloons. Paris started waking up so we had to lie about the reason that the balloons were up.

Once we were all up and dressed, we started to tidy our room and make our beds. We discovered that Ali had left during the night. When she returned she wouldn’t tell anyone why she had left for her mum’s room. Once I was all tidied up I went outside to tidy up all our washing that was on the fence. I spent ages outside, till breakfast actually.

Breakfast was the same as the day before except we were also offered baked beans. I had fruit salad and cereal again.

After breakfast we did more tidying up until we had to go and line up in our groups, ready for our first activity. Which was the self led walk to the Raukawa Falls. It was great, the falls were magnificent and we built a dam so that we could get closer to the action. We collected lots of rocks to bring back. We also did lots of skimming of rocks. I skimmed my first rock ever, YAY.

Once we got back it was break.

After break we did flying kiwi. Where you have a person connected to a harness and the rest of the group have to pull on a rope and as they pull the person slowly get lifted high into the air. We got 3 turns each. On the 1st go, the harnessed person get lifted straight into the air but on the 2nd and 3rd the person has to start running away from the group, as they run they get lifted into the air but this time they are swinging from side to side as well.

After everybody had, had their 3 goes we went up for lunch of Bacon and Egg Pie, it was delectable.

Once we had finished lunch we did archery, my highest score was 9. It was really hard to aim the bow and arrow at the target. We had some practice then we had a competition to see which individual got the highest score. Paris and Ali tied on 12. Then we had a team competition to see which group of 4 kids and an adult could get the highest score overall. My team consisted of Paris, Kaytlyn, Fenella, Dad and I. We lost 24-25. Then we had another team competition where each person got one shot instead of three. Ali got a bulls eye so her team won hands down.

After a drinks break and afternoon tea, we had orienteering where we had to get into two’s, get a map and piece of paper. We had to use the map to find the hidden paper cutters throughout the campsite. Onced you found one you had to stamp it on the right letter. We came second. I worked with Paris.

In our 1 hour free time before tea we went on the flying fox, I left halfway through to go and sweep the front of the cabin. I tidied all the shoes out the front and all the washing.

For tea we had roast chicken, potatoes, kumara, peas, corn and gravy. I didn’t have any gravy. I also had bread with margarine on it. Tea was yum.

After tea they announced that from the cabin inspection that night, three teams had come in a tie for first place, Shayla’s, Caleb’s and ours. All that work finally paid off.

We had diary writing, then we went out for a game of spotlight before supper. When it was lights out we basically all fell asleep straight away. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

I had so much fun at camp. I would definitely go back there any day. I would like to thank all the staff at camp Raukawa and also the parents and Mrs Mcneil for making our experience great.