Mira's Camp Blog - Guest Blog by Mira

This is Kate's Playdoh person.... with some help from mom.

Hi all,

This is a blog from Mira today... before I pass the computer over to her... I will tell you that things are cooling off here and we are starting to think about moving on. This week we went to the zoo. Kate's class was supposed to go last month but because they couldn't get enough drivers to drive all the wee ones to the zoo, it was cancelled. Kate was not impressed so we went during the weekend. Great little zoo.

Baby Rhino.

Lunch time.

Kate's fave.

Still Kate's fave...

Cousin Ed.

Paul's favorite... grr.

My favorite. I don't know if you can read the sign but it says, Be careful, I bite.

Kate and Mira with the pigs and yes they bite too.

Ok, now on to Mira. She spent the last three days on Camp with 67 other Year 5 and 6 students and a whole mess of parents and teachers.

Mira:

We went to the Otorohanga Kiwi House. We saw all kinds native birds. The birds in NZ are all dark shades and brown because a long time ago all the lively coloured ones got eaten by flying birds of prey and only the good hiders survived. I saw some Kiwis. They were in captivity. Then we drove to the Ruakuri Reserve and toured the Aranui Cave. It was so cool. We saw stalactites looked like chandeliers.

This is pic of some stalactites.

To tell the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite is that a stalactite hangs on tight to the roof and a stalagmites might grow up.

Then we went to the Waitomo Caves Discovery Centre. We went through a miniature version of a cave. We had to wiggle through this really skinny opening. My teacher, Mr. Morrison pretended that he was stuck. We passed around crystals and fossils and the teacher spoke to us about cave weta (a huge bug) and glow worms. Very neat experience. Then we went to the Marae ( a Mauri community center) and had a Powhiri. It is a welcoming ceremony. We sung a song. There were two halls in the Marae. One for the boys and one for the girls. There was a kitchen hall. We ate late. It was hard to sleep with everyone talking and snoring.

Here we are at the Waitomo Cave Discovery Centre - Kate, Makayla, Jo and Me.

Day two.

We went to Mangapohue Natural Bridge. It is a canyon with rock dropped on top to form a roof. It was beautiful with the light pouring through.

Mangapohue Natural Bridge.

We went for a hike through a cow pasture and saw these fossilized Oysters. They are 35 million years old and as big a small car.

This one looks like a wave.

Then we were supposed to go to Piri Piri cave but it was too wet and muddy so couldn't. We then went to Marokopa Falls.

Marokopa Falls.

Then we went on a very hectic drive - very very curvy to Kiritehere Beach. We played for 2 hours as the tide went out. Then we walked down the beach to find millions of fossils. Some of rocks, sticks and shells. They were 200 million years old fossils. They encouraged us to wear bare feet on the rocks. Ouch!

This is a pic of our group. I am in the middle in green.

Day 3.

We went to the glow worm cave. It was very glowing experience. Glow worms are little worms that spin sticky lines to catch their pray. They glow to attract the bugs. Then we went to the Woodlyn Park. We saw sheep shearing, a really big 1.? tonne cow, big! We saw dogs herd the sheep. The farmer had strings - he called it broad band, if you pull the strings it would let an animal through. Then we went the the "Shearing Shed". They sheared angora bunnies!!!!!! They attached their legs to a rack and stretched them out. Then shaved them. They said to was to take the wrinkles out. Ouch!
\Me and Makalya at the Shearing Shed.

Here is a pic of me and a big bunny. It takes them 3 months to grow this fur.

This one is my favorite.

Bye Bye for now, Mira.