by Liam and Matt  

Day 1: 

We left school at 8am on Monday and set for Massey Ski Lodge, located on Mt Ruapehu. We took stops at the Mobil in Taihape for morning tea and a local dairy in Ohakune for lunch. Then we made a 20-minute trip up to the mountain from Ohakune to the lodge, where we settled in before we made our way up to the snow for a snowball fight, where the students beat the teachers. We then made our way back down the mountain to Ohakune for dinner, where we went in groups to different restaurants (long live Captain Kunes). Then we went to the lodge, where we slept and got ready for the following day. 

Day 2: 

We started the day off with oats and made our boosters and also collected our oats for the next day. Then we suited up for our tramp. Mr Miller joined us, and we walked up to the starting point of the tramp.. The start of the tramp was a steady descent on loose gravel into a valley where we crossed a stream and went back up and descended into the next valley. We then had to slowly descend off a rock slab, rock climbing down a spine-like sculpture in a pool of water then descending a slope of rock. Walking the rest of the way was quite flat and easy. We finally arrived at the Mangaturuturu hut where we had our boosters (sandwiches). Then we tramped an hour down to a waterfall where we went swimming in the freezing melted snow waterfall, then hiked back to the hut where we camped outside under fly sheets.  

Day 3: 

On day three we ate breakfast and went back up the steep rock face and climbed up the steep spine where we ate some home baking at the top. When we arrived at the lodge, we had sausages and did camp games including multiple wrestling matches early in the afternoon and log throwing in the late afternoon. We then ate dinner and played more games like flip cup and beer pong (without the beer) where we could score points for our teams. 

Day 4: 

On day four we had a sleep in and left the lodge and headed for the hot pools where we were there for an hour, the pools were great because there were also cold showers next to them. Mini golf was next, where the students once again beat the teachers. Then we made our way back to our lodge where we had dinner that had been made by the College House staff. After dinner we played some more camp games, like dice stacking and arm wrestling (Note: Matthias is a pro arm wrestler). 

Day 5: 

Once again, we started day five of with some oats for breakfast and then we made our way to the rafting. It was a lot of fun, and the instructors were very cool. One of them dive tackled one of the students into the water. We also went under two train bridges just as two trains went over us. The rapids were quite small, but the most fun part was invading other people’s boats! After the rafting we got changed and then ate our boosters (sandwiches) and we started to realize that our time at camp was coming to an end. Some of us slept in the vans on the way back to Palmy, where we all got picked up from the same place that we got dropped off at the beginning of the week. 

Oh, what fun!