Room 1 Camp

By Atlanta Atkinson & Esther Bach | Posted: Tuesday March 9, 2021

A story about our camp written by Atlanta and Esther.

On Sunday 14th February, Room 1 went camping at Wainui.

When we first got to the campsite, we sat down on the blue seats to be exact. I forgot what we were talking about. Much later we went downstairs where the actual tents are and we sat on the grass in front of our teacher, her name is Mrs Yardley, she was talking about the boundaries. Soon one of the YMCA staff came to talk to us about the rules about camp.

Mrs Yardley told us where our tents were, we had tents in “Groups” and Mrs Yardley put us with our friends. I was in a tent with one other person.

On the first day of camp we all went to the beach, we were walking and it was a little far but at least we all got exercise. It was also like a minute trek. The sound of the waves crashing into the rocks was SUPER LOUD. While I was getting down from the rocks to get to the water, I slipped on a rock and slipped. It really hurt. When I finally got up and went to the water I attempted to swim to the platform but I couldn’t because it was SUPER deep. It looked so close, but at the same time deep. Eventually I asked Mrs Yardley to kayak me out to the platform, but she couldn’t so she got Mr Broad to kayak me out there. While he was taking me out there he sunk the kayak because the kayak had too much water in it so he fell off the kayak. We swam back to shore to take the water out of the kayak, then we attempted to do it again. It was taking a while but I eventually got there and I was happy, I jumped off for the first time and got back on the platform, then I never jumped off it again because I was petrified. 

A few minutes later Riki, Swaide, Briar, Falcon, Bella and I went on one side of the platform and tried sinking it. Esther was making sand castles with Lucia, Maddie and Megan. 

We then had to go back to shore because we had dinner. It was a nightmare going back because I got CHAFING… I hated it, it was painful and annoying. Just no. I walked like a MODEL, well according to what Mrs Yardley said. We finally got a drive back to camp from Mr Broad.

When I got to camp I went down to the creek to wash myself and my hair. I put too much shampoo in my hair so I had to get Esther to help me clean the soap out of my hair. After I got dressed, I hung my togs up on the string bits of the tent and relaxed a little. 

Later on it was dinner. I was still walking like a penguin, I got my cutlery and sat down with my friends and waited for dinner. For dinner we were having hamburgers, we got to make our own but before that we had to do the karakia kai, of course. After that we had to wait for the parents to finish their dinner, then Mrs Yardley would say to wash our dishes, then we washed our dishes, dried them and went to our tents or around the tent area. Then I was complaining about my chafing so I told Mrs Fea, Ari’s mum. Then I got some cream. She reckoned sunburn cream would work but unfortunately it burned me so I screamed because it was burning so much and I even put a little bit on. Then Mrs Fea came rushing to me and said what’s wrong. So I explained to her what happened then yeah! Nothing happened. I went and told Mrs Yardley and she told me to put some sort of LONG pants on, so I did then I couldn’t find a top to match with it so I asked Briar if I could borrow her black cropped top. She said I could.

In the evening we went to play the game spotlight outside. The spotlight is beyond my favourite game. I love spotlight more than any other games.

Also our activities were kayaking, coasteering & the giant swing. Kayaking was okay but we did not enjoy coasteering because it had seaweed and was gross. Giant swing was fun and this was our favourite activity. It was like I was on a ride, SO FUN! WE LOVED IT SO MUCH! Camping was fun. We liked it.

We came back from camp on the 17th of February & then Room 2 went on camp that day.