Our Year 7 students recently enjoyed awesome camp experiences at Rakiura Stewart Island.

Some of our Year 7 students (7KPT and 7DNA) have recently enjoyed the most amazing experience at Rakiura Stewart Island. We were so lucky to have this unique experience, to explore a part of New Zealand that most students had never been to before.

“Camp was a good experience to learn things that wouldn’t be possible to learn in school.” Harry Dell

Fishing

We had such an amazing time fishing and catching all those yummy fish that fed us all. We ate blue cod for two nights and brought enough home for each child to have a bag for their family. All children caught a fish with some children even catching more than 15! They were flying into the boat. It was so cool seeing all the mollymawks and the royal albatross swarming the boat in the hopes a smaller fish would be thrown back in. The noise they made was quite a din. One group did attract a visitor of ginormous proportions — a great white shark came to visit!

I want to say a massive thank you to Shane and Amber from 'Mana Charters' for taking us out on their amazing boat and helping us all have such a successful time.

“Fishing was a great experience and I got lucky and even saw a shark.” Isla Manson

Ulva Island

This is a predator-free island and the amount of native birdlife is phenomenal. We had an awesome time exploring the island and walking the tracks, stopping to listen and spot as many different types of birds as we could. A few of the groups even had a close encounter with a massive sea lion. We also enjoyed exploring in the rockpools and finding all sorts of different sea creatures under the rocks.

“It was nice being close to the sea and doing the walks and fishing.” Riley Garrett

Museum and Rakiura National Park Visitor Centre

It was so cool at the Stewart Island Museum. We saw lots of different things from pickled sea animals to wedding gowns! We had a scavenger hunt to explore all about the history of the island and learned about some incredible people who did amazing things to make a difference. Did you know the dogs that Ernest Shackleton took to Antarctica were bred on Stewart Island? The sealers and whalers were a large part of the history and seeing the very small harpoons they used to hunt was eye opening!

At the visitor centre, we learnt about things like the critically endangered New Zealand dotterel and lots about other native birds, pests, and about the walking tracks and tramping huts on Stewart Island.

We also really enjoyed walking around Oban, trekking out to Acker’s Point to a lighthouse which was very underwhelming and not at all what we imagined- it should be called a ‘box with a light’. However we did enjoy exploring the beach, the shipwreck and a tree swing!

“It was a great camp, an amazing experience and something we will treasure forever.” Riley Syben

“It was my favourite school camp I've been to. All the activities were really fun and the cabins were nice.” Mila Dalton

Thank you to Tiffany, Alison for all the organising and parents Jim, Sam, Jen, Ben, James, Elizabeth, David, Sarah and Stuart who took time off to come to camp with us and helped out to make it such a success. It was an experience that we will never forget.