On Monday 8 May our glorious trip to the top of Mount Kau Kau began in earnest.

The whole of Manawanui walked up to Truscott Ave, known as the north entrance. Although I had been up Mount Kaukau personally a lot, I had never taken this path. As we made our way up we came to a very steep part that really stood out to me as I thought: how intriguing it would be to see how certain creatures are able to climb such cliffs? As we continued up the path we came to a staircase, and another and another and ANOTHER. It seemed to go on forever! We still continued our way up although the trip had only just begun.

On the walk up you could hear the mud squelching under our shoes. The stairs were the hardest part: like a never ending spiral. I tried to race up but it seemed impossible. By the time I got to the top some of the kids were already there. I could see the other kids on the other side of the mountain waving back at us. We could hear them which seemed surprising since the wind was blowing past my ears making it hard to hear.

As we pushed forward we had got past the first bit and most likely the hardest set of stairs. As we moved forward we made it to the next part of the trip we had to go across a steep but thankfully wide path. It was quite the walk and when we FINALLY made it to the top we had to wait for everyone else because they were taking forever. Once they all came we ate some lunch and then we were split into 4 groups for Pākiki rotations. We learned some interesting facts about Aotearoa, rotating around the teachers so we all got some of everything e.g. The story of Ngake and Whātaitai with Paul, Kupe the great explorer with Mr Martin, native plants of Aotearoa with Miss Edge and European settlers with Mrs Temple.

After having a nice break we started to head back down the hill, it was good to have a break before getting back into it. As we made our way down the hill everything started to seem more familiar because the path we took down was a path I had been on before. When we got to the bottom we had made our way to a playground so we had a break, ate some food then got back on our feet and to school. And that my friends was Manawanui’s trip up Mount Kaukau!

Written by: Brock Nash and Liam O'Connor