From Kaori Kobayashi, Assistant Head of School, KDEC South Provision.

At the end of last year, four of our Ormiston Junior College students, Sarian, Kaylee, Thando and Jonathan attended an amazing trip, that took them to Cape Reinga and back with lots of interesting stops along the way!

The purpose of this trip was to visit some of the most beautiful areas of northern New Zealand and have a once in a lifetime experience to celebrate their final days at OJC and create lifelong memories with their Year 10 peers.

We drove an astounding 1,096 kilometers and along the way visited some talented local people where we heard their stories and experienced how the locals live self sufficiently and are living off their land. Learners were also fortunate to experience the history of Waitangi by traveling to Russell and then a tour around the beautiful Waitangi grounds.

We travelled in four vans driven by OJC Staff and stayed in Maraes. Many students were excited as this was their first experience of this kind. We found out some learners and staff snored very loudly. Luckily our Deaf learners were able to sleep peacefully while others suffered through the noises.

Sarian and Kaylee loved swimming in the beautiful scenery and enjoyed chatting to each other in the van.

Thando enjoyed chatting with her peers and was very helpful by doing dishes, cleaning and helping tidying up the Marae.

Jonathan got involved with his hearing peers and enjoyed swimming and playing beach rugby.

The weather was okay, it did rain heavily sometimes but overall we were lucky to have the sun out. We saw many beautiful parts of NZ including amazing scenic views, a large Kauri tree, beaches and we swam in lakes and rivers.

This trip really helped learners to build a strong bond with each other while experiencing some of NZ’s history. This was a great opportunity for learners to stop and take time to think about their own identity as a person growing and living in NZ.