Rm 19A & Rm 15 Year 7 Winter Tramp Report

By Ben Shaw

At school, before we had to get on the bus to head to Mt Cargill to go on a 5 hour winter tramp. Mr Min had a talk to Rm 19A about what we are going to be doing and what he’s expecting of us. We were given a number so that we could be numbered off, so that Mr Min could make sure that everyone was there.

We got on a separate bus to Rm 15, so that we didn’t have 50 kids on one bus. As we headed out along the road, we went the way to Port Chalmers, but didn’t go to Port Chalmers. Instead we went along another road that led to the start of the tramp.

We had to walk to get to the actual start of the walking trail because the bus was too big to get to the end of the road. So we had to walk up a road, then along a gravel road, through mud, over a tiny stair bridge, more mud and then finally, THE TRAIL! Except we stopped for food. All I had was a few barley sugars.

Then we started the real tramp. It started off easy, but then became harder as we continued. We went over rough terrain, rocks, rivers and lots of other different things. Most of the time I walked with my friends, Muna, Jack, Jackson and Cam. We walked and sang songs and talked and also only I did this, complained, just kidding at this point I was very energetic. We continued through the bush, drank water, and kept on walking. By this point I was talking to one of the parents who was also called Ben.

Ben and I talked about lots of things while walking. Then we got to some stairs and lots of people were complaining about how long until we were done. Ben said we were nearly half way. That was mid-way up the stairs. Then we got to the top of the stairs, yeah, Ben was right, we were nearly half way. Like, literally, we were half way. We had a snack there, then got back to the trail. By now I was getting tired, Muna had basically disappeared into thin air, (not really, but he wasn't with me, Jack, Jackson and Cam) so me, Jack, Jackson and Cam started singing child cartoon theme songs.

Like Thomas the tank engine and other ones from your childhood. I was getting really tired, but then we got to the organ pipes, they were kinda cool. They were also very slippery. Then we had loads of rocks and rough terrain from there. Then me, Jack, Jackson and Cam were all by ourselves, we just followed the main trail and found everyone. Then when everyone got there (because me, Jack, Jackson and Cam weren't the last people) we had our lunch. Now we had about half an hour left for the tramp.

We had got to some very, very tiring terrain, about 100 steps. I thought this wouldn’t be this hard, I didn’t think it would be very easy either. When we got past the steps me and Jackson were walking ahead of my other friends, and we found Ryan. He ran ahead. We continued walking along a not as tough terrain, but still uphill, when we found a very, very, tired Isaac. I told him how at the end, there was a bit of big rocks to climb over. Before we got there to the rocks, me, Jackson and Isaac found Ryan in the bush, picking up snow. So me and Jackson went in too. Then I waited for Jack to catch up, purely to throw a snowball at him. He was a very easy target. We got to the rocks that I told Isaac about, and there we were, the top of Mt Cargill! There was a lot of snow up there. I made a huge snowball.

The track down was easy and we were on the bus heading back for Tahuna before we knew it. It was such a great day and I loved every minute of it.