Due to Covid19 implications and restrictions in Australia, we were not able to attend the 2020 Melbourne Arts Festival. Instead, all of us: Mrs. Hanson, Ellie Brown, Jordyn Houghton, Catherine Flannagan, and Wendy Brown (parent help) decided to spontaneously book a trip to Christchurch and Auckland in the last week of the term three school holidays to watch the live show of Mary Poppins. 

While the pandemic was still dangerously alive in Auckland (Level 3), the show was postponed to two weeks after we arrived in Auckland, which meant we couldn’t attend the show. We all decided to make the most of the week because we did not want to miss out on another school trip again since it is our final year at Greymouth High School. 

On the first day of the trip, we traveled up to Christchurch early morning to check out and tour Ara Institute of Canterbury and the University of Canterbury. This allowed us as students to experience what our studies and student life will be like if we were transferring on to tertiary education. 

On this day we also participated in an escape room at Codebreakers, where we had to steal the Mona Lisa which really tested our cooperation and communication skills as a team. Luckily we escaped the room by accomplishing the mission of stealing the Mona Lisa painting with 1 minute and 40 seconds left. 

It was very early in the morning, waking up at 3:30 am to be up and ready for our flight at Christchurch Airport at 6:00 am. Going through the check-in process and security ran smoothly with flying to Auckland right on time. We all wore our masks on the plane and arrived in Auckland at 7:15 am. 

As we arrived in Auckland we drove out to the wharf to have a scrumptious breakfast and also having a wander around. In the car, we hopped straight to Rainbows End at 10:30 am. Sadly, the big rides were temporarily closed due to the strong winds making it dangerous to ride. We had so much fun there, even though most of us got soaking wet from the bumper boats from being too competitive, as we spent five hours there. Finally, we arrived at our accommodation for the next two nights, crashing on our beds because we were so knackered. 

At 8:30 pm, we were all booked in to have a lavish dinner at the where we rotated around the Tower on its moving platform while eating our dinner, seeing all of Auckland. This was an amazing experience to have as we were presented to the high-class lifestyle for once in a while. Arriving at our accommodation at 11:00 pm we all crashed on our beds falling asleep automatically as soon as we touched the pillows as we had been awake for 20 hours straight. 

All of us woke up early to leave the Airbnb at 9:30 am to go shopping at Auckland’s Sylvia Park Mall. We shopped till we dropped leaving the mall at 1:15 pm to then attend our booking at 1:30 pm at Auckland Zoo. This was amazing seeing the Elephants, Giraffes, Orangutans, Baboons, Rhinoceros, Meerkats, and many more animals. Then we headed back to the accommodation for 45 minutes before we went to Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq in Newmarket to play a game of bowling. It was a hilarious game with a variation of strikes, spares, and even missing all of the pins. 

After this, we headed to grab something to eat before attending Rainbows End’s Dark Carnival where rides were still running till 11:00 pm, including entrance to the haunted Manic Manor where PennyWise and Annabelle were hiding. 

The day before at Rainbows End, one of the staff took us on a tour of the Manor showing us the props, art, and lighting where the characters are hiding in the Manor, by giving us the fright of our lives slamming the dropbox creating a loud noise. We ended up staying at Rainbows End till the end of the night, arriving at the accommodation at 11:30 pm, heading off the sleep around midnight. 

On our last day of Auckland, we went to Kelly Tarlton’s Sealife Aquarium spending a lot of the time commentating on the penguins fighting while grabbing each other’s rocks while they were breeding. We then had our last lunch on the wharf again, and having a look down Queen street before we headed to the airport to come home. Our flight home was at 5:00 pm arriving in Christchurch at 6:15 pm and finally arrived home in Greymouth around 9:30 pm - 10:00 pm. 

We thank you all for either buying raffle tickets or donating in any other way to our fundraising as this trip would not be possible without you. Thank you to our amazing parent help on the trip! This will be a memory from our last year of school we all cherish forever.

By Ellie Brown