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Year 11 Geography Field Trip to Queenstown
 
Photo by CGHS Publication

Year 11 Geography Field Trip to Queenstown

Alex Sidwell and Pippa Blair —

On the 10th of March, all the Year 11 Geography classes hopped on a bus to travel down to Queenstown to interview tourists for our internal assessment.

On the way there we talked on the bus about the landscape and how there were different patterns, different interactions, the environment and how it has changed over time as well as the changes as we drove across the country. After seven hours on the bus we got to our accommodation and met up in the main hall to further discuss the landscape we had seen on our drive. Then we were allowed some free time around the camp and some people went down and have a swim in Lake Wakatipu. 

Year 11 Geography Field Trip to Queenstown — Image by: CGHS Publication

On our second day in Queenstown we all got on the buses  at 9am and drove into town where we split up into two groups. One of the groups went to a talk from Queenstown Destination and Queenstown Resort College where we learnt about the tourism in Queenstown, the effects Covid has had on the industry and what are some of their goals for the future. Meanwhile the other group was doing the amazing race, a challenge to find a certain list of things around Queenstown. This group was also interviewing tourists to gather the data we needed for our internal assessment. After each group was finished we swapped over. Then everyone was allowed to have an hour break for lunch, and at 1:15pm we all met up outside the Skyline building to go up the gondola. When we got to the top we split up again to draw a precis sketch of the view we saw. Once we had drawn the map and it was checked off with the teacher we were given our luge passes and we could go on the luge. Once everyone had done all of that we went back down the gondola. We took the busses straight back to the accommodation where we got into our bunkroom groups to collate our data, which we then gave to the teachers who put everyone's data together. We were allowed free time again until after dinner, when we all stayed in the main room to do our Choropleth map, where we used the data that the teachers had collated.

On the last day it was mostly packing up and cleaning, and at around 9:30am we got back on the bus to head home. On the way we stopped at the bungy jumping place just out of Queenstown and talked about sustainability, how AJ Hackett Bungy has shown this and some ways they care for the environment. We also got to see someone do a tandem bungy jump, while we had the option to look inside the bungy jumping building. After this we got back on the busses and travelled back, stopping briefly in Twizel for lunch and Geraldine for a bathroom break.