Rotorua

I started packing up my clothes and a sleeping bag and a lot of other things on Sunday to take on our school camp. I had to stuff all my things in my bags. I brought $14 because there was a shop just down the path.
I got in the car and went to school. When I got to school I saw that there were two vans and two middle sized trailers parked by the hall. There were a lot of bags on the porch and there were green and white jackets there on the porch too. We all put on a jacket and then we all looked at the vans. One of the vans had a grey strip on the sliding door. We called that van Troy. The other van had a blue strip on its sliding door we called it Tracy. Soon we were on the road. The last thing we had to do was to pack our staff in to the trailers. There was heaps of staff to pack in to the trailer. Finally we all packed up our staff and put it into the trailer.
We were on the road. We travelled the way to Whangamonona. There a lot of corners and some people stared to get sick like me. So we had to stop a few times and had to swap seats. From Whangamonona we went to Taumarunui and had lunch at a playground and I went on the monkey bars. After that we carried on to Rotorua. On the way there we saw lots of pine trees and bush. It took seven hours with two big stops and some toilet stops. When we finally got to Rotorua we could smell the sulphur and we saw lots of fumaroles and Nina said “It should be called Bay of Stinky” but on a sign it said ‘Bay of Plenty’. At camp we unpacked all our stuff and we made our beds. We went into the cabin and sorted out where we were all going to sleep. We had to sleep with an adult and that was Robyn. For tea I had spaghetti bolognaise and it was delicious. Shane had boiled eggs with toast. After tea we had some pudding. The kind of ice cream was hokey pokey that was delicious too. We were tired from the long trip so we went to bed at eight o’clock.

On Tuesday we woke up and lay in our beds for five minutes and then we got dressed and made our bed. I went outside and played with the other kids outside. We kept on playing until it was breakfast time. We went to the dining room and had breakfast. We had cereal and toast and a drink of raro. Then we got to have free time. We went to up back to the cabins and played games. Then the fun began and we were off to the Buried Village. When we were there, there were lots of carvings standing around the building. They looked cool with red paint. Then we had to wait for Mr. Chapman to pay then we went into the museum. We had to get paired up. We got to go into the museum and look at all the cool stuff. There was heaps of stuff. There were broken bottles and plates and lots of valuable stuff. We watched a movie. It was about a man who was in the eruption and died. Then we got to go outside and we got a map so we knew what the places were called. There were lots of trees and there were broken up buildings. Then we got to go into the bush and look for white marks. The white marks meant that there was a broken up house under the ground. Then we saw Mr. Macrae’s hotel with wood lying everywhere. That was very cool. There were houses and a concrete bakery. There were lots of pathways around the place. There was this place where a house was standing up and you could go underground to see all the broken up bottles and plates. We spotted a stream with trout in it and we threw pebbles into the little stream and the trout came out of their homes. Then five minutes on we went down this pathway and it lead to something cool. Then when we got down to the bottom there was this waterfall five metres high. That’s very big. Then we made it back up to the café and waited for the others.
We went back to the camp and had a barbeque lunch. I had a bun with a meat patty it. That was very yum.
After lunch we went to Leisureworld. When we got there we saw that there was a huge building with three big Hydroslides. One hydro slide was black then the rest were red and blue. We were so exited that we were going to go swimming with out paying. When we got in to the shop and Mr Chapman paid we got dressed and went over the rules. Then we went to the top of the building I went down on the red one first. On my second go I went on the black one and I yelled so loud. Then we got dressed and went back to camp and got dressed in my good clothes to go to Pizza Hut. We got to Pizza Hut and went to have a tour. After the tour we had pizza. I had two pieces of pizza and some chips. Then we had some pudding, I had ice cream in a cone. When I was putting ice cream in my cone I wanted it to stop but it wouldn’t because I didn’t push the handle on the ice cream machine straight up. Then we went back to camp and we played a game with Miss Lewis. We played Grandpa’s Green Undies. It was a cool game. Then we all went to bed.

Wednesday
On Wednesday morning we had breakfast and went to the Rotorua Museum. It was a big building and when we went inside there were lots of pictures on the wall and lots of necklaces and bracelets. After Mr Chapman had a talk with the people who were there we got a tour guide that gave us a sticker so they knew that we were together. Then we got to walk around and he gave us a worksheet with lots of questions that we could answer. Then we got to split up into three groups. First I got to go up to the top of the building where we could see the view of the whole city. Then we went down to the basement and we had to put on some helmets and went into the basement. It was very hot in the basement so we went through it quick. Then we went to look at the baths
There were lots of baths and there was on that had been carefully taken out and left a big hole. Then we got to watch a movie and the three babies got very scared of the spirit of fire that the good guys killed and pushed into the ground. The movie was about the Tarawera eruption and all of the sets were moving. Nina kept on laughing when the sets were moving. Then we went and had lunch at the park.
When we went to Te Puia we went in a marae and saw Maori people dancing in a Maori. Then we learnt a bit more Maori. We went to some schools and then we went down a truck and then we stopped to look at the mud pools then we went down some more then we could see the geysers. We sat on some warm rocks that looked like seats. We couldn’t sit on the yellow bits because steam was coming out and it could burn you. On the way back to do some weaving we stopped to look at the geysers and one sprayed us with hot water. At the weaving shop a lady taught us how to weave flowers and roses from flax. When we got back to camp we put our togs on and went to the Waikite Hot Pools which were very warm but we couldn’t put our heads under. After the swim we went for a walk to the biggest hot spring in the world. Back at camp we had tea and played games and went to bed.

Thursday
On Thursday the first thing we did was the luge. I lost my ticket on the luge then Mr Chapman bought all of as some more tickets. We got four turns each. It was fun because I got to go two turns. I went at the same time as Claire and we were having a race and I won. It was fun. After that all of the school went to camp and had lunch. Then we went to get our togs and we went to the blue lake and we went on the biscuit. We all got 2 turns. I went with Callum and Justin on the biscuit. If you wanted to have a turn on the boat you could go on the boat. If you wanted to water ski you could. I went water skiing. When we had finished we went back to camp and played camp games. Then we went down for dinner. Then we went up and played more games. Then we went to bed.

Friday
We stared packing then went down for breakfast. We had eggs and toast for breakfast. Then we went up and got all our stuff in the trailer. Then we all got in. I got in the front then we stared driving out of Rotorua. When we got out of Rotorua we stared playing car cricket. We were the New Zealand team and we won. Then we played a question game and you have to ask someone a question and then they are not aloud to answer. They have to say a question back. Mr Chapman was against me and I got cheeky to him. He said that I was in big trouble but he was just tricking. Then we came back to school and went home.