Students reports from Year 7 & 8 Camps

Year 7 Camp Iona

From Monday the 17th, to Friday the 21st February, the Year 7’s at EOHS, went to Camp Iona. There were a lot of really fun activities we did there, but some of the activities that really stood out to me the most, were archery and abseiling. The reason why these two stood out to me the most, was because I had never done them before, meaning that I had experienced something new. So overall, Camp Iona was amazing!

By Molly Scott

Year 8 Activity Week Camp

Our week was filled with a wide range of activities which included a 3 hour walk up through a creek, in bush and onto a two and half hours of rope climbing on a rope line confidence course near the base of the Maungatua's. We slept in bivvys in the bush on Monday night, that was not so easy as we had to make them ourselves in groups. The highlight was the zipline on the first two days. Tuesday, we walked around and stayed on Quarantine Island and Wednesday we visited the Otago Marine Study centre. Thursday and Friday were filled with Maori cultural activities including staying over at the Puketeraki Marae. We played lots of games and learnt about medicine in native plants and learnt how to weave a flower using flax.

A great time had by all.

By Greta McCaw

Camp Iona and the Bunk Room Inspections

It was a normal day at Camp Iona, and we all lay in our dust covered beds. As I looked up at the window, the golden sun was nowhere to be seen. It was a miserable day, but we still got up and cleaned our room for the upcoming, and last, bunk room inspection.

I ran over to the flowers behind the lodge and picked the most beautiful, luscious and crisp flowers I could find. They didn’t smell like much, but they were a beautiful decoration anyway. As I got back to the cabin, I saw that the ground was littered with dead or almost dead huhu beetles. I tried to avoid standing on them but there were so many it was almost impossible.

I lay the flowers on our windowsill as Ella T brushed away the bugs from the concrete ground. Soon, Ms McLachlan came marching down the path. We realised, we forgot our little orange marching booklet! I took a risk and reached into our cabin by opening the door a little bit and I snatched up the little book.

My stomach was sore with nervousness as she approached our cabin for the inspection. I welcomed her and Nicole and they gave us some points for a nice welcoming. The night before we had folded our clothing into our suitcases and we had made every bed look neat. We got a total of 12, we were sure to quickly leave and brag to all of the boys’ cabins about our achievement.

By Hannah Paul