We had to make sure that we were at school bright and early in the morning, so that we could take the bus to Logan Park.

The Year 8’s from Tahuna go every year in Term Three. Once to Logan Park High school for a practise, and once to Long Beach to climb on the rocks.

This year while we were in lockdown we weren’t sure if rock climbing would go ahead, but we are so glad that it did!

The day started at about 8:35am when we went on a long bus ride to the other side of Dunedin. When we got to Logan Park we split into two groups; one to go climbing first, and one to play in the gym.

Excitement was in the air and everyone was pumped about getting to go rock climbing in school time with their friends!

It was super cold that day, one of the coldest days of the year even. After both groups had been climbing we were meant to walk to the botanical gardens and do a scavenger hunt, but it became apparent very early on that it was too cold to do that.

Once we had walked over to the gym, the groups split up. I was in group number 2, so we went into the exercise room first. The room was quite small, but it was filled with awesome stuff! There were treadmills, bench presses, rowing machines, weights, exercise bikes and more!

We basically pottered around there for an hour and tried out all the machines. Then at morning tea time we had something to eat, and kicked a ball around in the school gym. It was so much fun!

Soon after it was time for the groups to switch so we headed into the rock climbing room.

The rock climbing room was amazing! It was quite compact but very tall. The ground was basically a big yellow cushion, like the one at Inflatable World. The walls were all rock climbing walls, and there was a see through plastic roof.

There were two instructors there named Ben and Tim, and Maddie and Jonathan’s dads were helping too.

Once we were all inside Tim explained how to put on a harness. He then explained how to tie the rope into your harness and how to belay.

Rock climbing is a three man job. There is a person who climbs, someone who belays, and someone who assists the belayer.

Tim did a tutorial with Matt as the climber, him as the belayer and me as the assistant.

When Tim was belaying for Matt and I was sitting on the floor being the assistant, I kept zoning out and forgetting to do my job, so everyone was laughing!

Soon we were ready to climb!

I went in a group with Ashley and Jamie, and we were laughing throughout the whole session, it was so much fun!

One of the walls was way bigger than the other, and my group went on the big one first. I was the first one to climb and I was super excited. Jamie was belaying for me and I really didn’t trust her anywho. I climbed right up the wall and it was so fun! I tried to sit on the top but I kept bumping my head, so I just came down.

We all had turns and switched around roles, and before we knew it our time climbing was up.

It was time to go back to school!

Rock Climbing was so much fun. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, and I never saw someone who didn’t have a smile on their face.

The whole class is really excited for Long Beach, it’s going to be awesome!!

By Jemma Gray

Room 11 :)

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