We were fortunate to have our Year 13 Geography trip to Queenstown last week. Despite some rough weather to start us off, we were able to rejig our schedule to incorporate studies of both the natural and cultural environments.

Queenstown provides the perfect landscape to cement our understanding of glaciation. We traveled down to Glenorchy to investigate the source of the Wakatipu glacial system and trekked up Tobin's Track to view the numerous glacial features from an elevated point. This was a fantastic opportunity for students to put their classroom learning into context and further their understanding of the Natural Process standard.

This trip also allowed us to gain an appreciation of our cultural Process study based on tourism development in Queenstown. We carried out over 340 surveys looking at how different groups of tourists use different spaces. We were also fortunate to have an informative talk at the Lakes District Museum, which outlined key stages of development for Queenstown and the impacts that these have had on both people and places. We also took the opportunity to experience some tourist activities firsthand with experiences on the Shotover Jet, Queenstown Paraflights, and Bungy Jumping for the brave.

A big thank you goes out to Mr. Mark Wellstead who joined our group at the last minute as a parent helper. We all appreciated his time, efforts, and company.