What a great camp it was in a magic place, Orton Bradley Park.

It was an early start last Thursday when the Year 4's headed over to Orton Bradley Park for their overnight camp. On the Friday, the Year 3's joined us for a fun day. When we arrived at camp, we quickly got ourselves prepared for the first activities of the day, abseiling and orienteering. It was pretty cold up where we did the abseiling. It was a long way down and were advised to keep looking up. Once we had our harness on,  we put our  thumb to bottom to let the rope through, put our feet wide apart, lean back and weight the rope, breathe and go.                                                              

Then after morning tea the groups swapped over. Orienteering was so much fun. Lucy and Mali had the course off pat and came in first having done it a few times before. 

Lunch was sushi and potato pizza, all made before hand at school. The day before camp, we turned Kotare into a kitchen to prepare, make and bake a number of things for camp. We made our morning and afternoon teas, lunch and desserts. A big thank you to the parents who came that day to help us. If you ever want pikelets or sushi, just ask the children and they will make it for you.

After lunch we went biking and did the flying kiwi. The team building activity was a lot of fun and required some skill and team work to make the marble travel along our pieces of half pipe which we joined together. The flying kiwi was awesome. We were in a harness and were hoisted up by our teammates. We could either swing back and forth or go around. Taking our bikes was a great idea as we got to spend some time on the bike track around the camp. 

After these fun activities, it was time to put up our tents. Mr Halliday made a bit of a competition for us. He just got his pop up tent out of the bag and said he was done. But then the combie rocked on up, Sarah popped up the top and it was ready for the girls and her to sleep in.

It was all hands on deck to make dinner. Mr Halliday and his team, barbecued the sausages and we had the salads made, garlic bread heated and it was all ready to serve. After the karakia, the children queued up for their dinner. It wasn't long before everyone  was served and happily eating dinner outside. It was cool temperatures but at least it didn't rain. 

After dinner the children played games, biked, sat around and chatted before having dessert. Then it was hot chocolate and off to bed. It didn't take long before the camp was quiet.

The next morning we were woken to the birds singing and the lambs baaing. It felt like we were tourists enjoying that special moment. After breakfast the Year 3's arrived and after a quick play, we were off to do some weeding around native tree planting and a look at the health of the stream. We measured the water flow, studied the life in the stream and saw the eels.

Next thing it was lunch time. There was plenty of food. Lunch was self served filled bread rolls, salad, fruit and left over baking from morning tea.  

It was time to pack up, put the tents down and walk down to the water wheel. Thank you Dale for getting it going. 

Home time came about very quickly. We all went back to school for the end of the school day.

A huge big thank you to all the parents who came and helped with camp. You made this possible for us.