Kawau Camp

Well, what can we say, camp was awesome.  We had to get up really early on Tuesday morning (while everyone else was still on their Easter holiday!) and be ready to leave from school at 7.00am.  We then travelled down to Sandspit, near Warkworth, to catch the ferry to Kawau Island.  The weather was lovely and so was the boat trip. When we got to camp we had to get all the gear off the ferry and into the bunk house.  Everyone had to take a bag up the jetty so it didn't take that long with everyone working together.  We then found out which bunk rooms we were in, got settled in and then it was LUNCHTIME.  In the afternoon we explored the grounds, the fitness trail and did our first rotation.  There were 8 activities - 2 lots of kayaking, yachting, archery, orienteering, confidence course, bivouac construction and raft building.  The next day we went from once activity to another, it was awesome fun and very tiring.  On Thursday we hiked to Mansion House after catching the ferry from camp to School House Bay.  On the way we visited a little cemetery and the abandoned copper mine.  It took a little while to get to Mansion House, which we then explored for half an hour or so.  Mansion House is really beautiful and shows what it was like to live back in the time of Governor Grey (he had the house built).  Luckily, we caught the ferry back to camp and didn't have to walk back.  We were a bit tired by then.  A part of our camp tradition is to have a speech competition.  Every night we listened to the speeches, which were very interesting and really good.  This year our camp speech winner was William from Room 18.  On Friday, we had to pack up to come home.  Most of us were really tired and ready to come home to our families.  Everyone had an awesome time.