School has Successful Winter School Camp in the Mount Cook Region

During August, Long Beach School from Ashburton had a very successful Winter School Camp in the Aoraki Mount Cook and Mackenzie Region. They stayed at Glentanner Park, and were able to ski at Round Hill Ski Field, Learn about Search and Rescue in Mount Cook, do the famous Hooker Valley Track in Mount Cook National Park, learn about and visit the Black Stilt Recovery Programme, catch a Salmon at the Salmon Farm, visit the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre and watch the 3D Movies, and ice skate and swim at Alpine Springs.


Read what the students thought of the Aoraki/Mount Cook Winter School Camp:

Day 1

At quarter to seven in the morning, every child in Huntingdon Class had to drag their sleepy bodies out of bed and come to school with all their gear ready to be packed into the horse float. We all said our goodbyes and started driving to Round Hill. The trip seemed to take ages but we did have our friends to talk to, but sometimes when you're sitting in the car for two hours with nothing do do other than talk, you can get a bit annoyed with them!!!

Finally we arrived at the ski field, and we all cued to get some skis. Then we started our lessons which took about an hour and a half. At the start of the lesson we went up and down the pommer on which I managed to get to the top four times out of seven. When I was going down, I could feel the icy cold snow flinging up off the person in front of Me's skis. After that we had some free time and had a yummy sausage and milo for lunch.

Then Pup and Baz showed us how to build a snow cave to keep warm and out of the wind in a blizzard which was really cool, and he also showed us how to find out if someone was trapped under the snow.

Then we got into our cars, and we set our course for Glentanner. When we got to Glentanner we unpacked and then went over to the toasty dinner room to have tea. After tea we did the dishes and jumped into our PJ's to watch a movie. After that we went back to cabin one and kept on talking because we were on a sugar rush from the lollies we had, but sadly Mrs Quinlan told us off and we had to go to sleep.

Day 2

Yaaaaaawn! The next day was a struggle to get out of bed because we were knackered from the HUGE day of skiing, and as well as that we had to get up at 7am and queue up for the showers in the freeeeeezing cold morning frost!

But then the scrumptious bacon and eggs cheered us up. Once we had licked our plates clean and sculled our raros, we headed outside to do Search and Rescue with Pup and Baz. We learnt how to make stretchers to lay the patient onto, wrap up serious cuts and also how to carry the stretcher (that's important!!!).

Once our patient was feeling better we all popped inside for some morning tea and a run around. After that we hopped into the cars and drove off down the track, headed for the Hooker Valley track which was really cool because there was snow everywhere, and I mean everywhere!

Day 3

The next day we did our routine things, get up, have a shower, eat breakfast and do the dishes. On this day we did a lot of activities including; the movies at the Hermitage, which were really cool because it wasn't just a normal screen, it was a giant hollow dome that came down over us and there were 4 projectors, 1 on each side, and it gave it a really cool 3D effect.

Then we went to see the rare Black Stilts and how they look after them and try to trap all their predators including; the Ferret, Wild Cats and Stoats. Did you know there are only 80 adult Black Stilts left?

After that we had to go to see the slimy salmon farm which was really cool because we got to feed the fish and gut one when we caught it, and we even gave it to Mrs Quinlan!

After a long day we headed home and had another yummy tea before we started off the camp concert which was hilarious, then we had to make a dress out of rubbish bags which was also very cool!

Day 4

By now we had got used to the cold and were fine about getting up at seven in the morning and having a shower, but sadly this was our last day of camp and it was now time to have breakfast and pack up all our stuff, which was hard because our rooms were total pig sty's, well, the boy's were.

On the way home we stopped in Tekapo to go ice skating and swimming. Eventually the pools were too hot for us to take, so the pool carers turned some fountains on beside the pool so that chilled us off a bit.

Wow, time sure goes fast when you're having fun, we can't wait until next year!