Each year, the international students look forward to the International Ski Camp in Queenstown. This year it was held from July 28-31. It was an amazing experience where students could ski or snowboard for three days.

This year, twenty students went to ski camp, including some friends of the older girls, which added to the joyful atmosphere. We were also lucky to have the care and support of Ms. Riethmaier, Miss Wilson, Kana and Ms. Gan (Guoguo’s mum). They made sure we ate well, we were ready to go in the morning and have a good time.

We arrived in Queenstown at seven o’clock on Friday night. We settled into our cabin and had a nice, hot meal. On the second day, we had skiing and snowboarding classes in the morning. Among the students, it was the first time for Guoguo, Katrina and Phin to experience snow sports, but they did really well and acquired many snowboarding and skiing skills. For me, a highlight of ski camp was my birthday on July 29th. I felt so lucky to celebrate my birthday with my friends and my parents, who came up especially, with lots of cake to share. We had a fun evening where the older girls sang songs, we played games and made many happy memories.

The older students, who were already experts in skiing, learned hops, turns, and presses while they were skiing. The Year 13 students said this year’s ski camp was a great success, and we all did a great job. We were so grateful Ms. Gan came along this year as she took so many amazing professional photos of us skiing and snowboarding at ski camp. We have been able to share images of our amazing time with our friends and family back in our home country thanks to Ms. Gan’s help.

We had our final day of skiing on the Monday. In the middle of the afternoon, we greeted the Year 9 students as they arrived for their ski camp before returning to Dunedin. We look forward to next year’s ski camp and hope it will be as extraordinary as this one.