The highlight of our week- climbing with Ara Institute!

On the 10th of May a group of 24 students from Room 9 went Rock Climbing and Abseiling in two different locations. At Breens in Room 9, Miss Pearce split us into two groups. We all got picked up in vans and met at Ara Institute of Canterbury. When we got there we tried our harnesses and helmets on.

Our instructors took us to Cattlestop Crag off Summit Road, there were 10 kids and Phil who went up there to Rock Climb and Abseil. To get to the Rock Climbing spot we had to tramp to our spot. The climbs were graded of what age you are, so all of us should’ve climbed our grade. Two people did the hardest climb of grade 15 and some did the easiest climb of the grade of 8. A lot of us stepped out of our comfort zone by climbing over our grade level. We all got to learn how to belay and backup belay, we also learnt how to do the figurative 8 so we could climb safely up the wall without falling off. We had one person on the wall climbing,one on belay and one on backup belay. We all had a good time and enjoyed rock climbing.

We all had a go at abseiling down a rock, there were 2 people that were running abseiling and we had two people going at a time. The people that ran abseiling were Sarah and Nathan. Some of us went down the wall with help by Sarah and some went down the wall with help by Nathan. A lot of us knew how to abseil and some of us didn’t so we went up the hill and got taught how to abseil but on land so it was harder when we got to the rock.

At Huntsbury Reserve Miss Pearce and 14 students hiked through a little path with lots mud and large rocks to climb over to get to our destination to do our rock climbing and abseiling, a separate location from the other group. When we got next to the hill for rock climbing we saw some of the instructors high up on the hill setting up the ropes and bolts for us to be attracted to. At first most were slightly scared and others were excited. We had 20 minutes of our main instructor Lydia explaining how to belay and what to call before you start climbing to help us stay safe. Afterwards we tied figurative eights onto our harnesses and got to start climbing. From the ground it would look quite easy to climb up but in reality it's extremely challenging to get good hand grips and spaces for your feet. This experience was the first time I ever got to rock climb and I started on the grade 14 one too which was the hardest one out of the options on the hill. Overall it was a really fun day and I’m positive everyone enjoyed themselves and I hope to do some more rock climbing.

By Ryan Farrer, Connor Radbourne and Jessica Huang