Mount Arthur Track

The Mount Arthur Track is two days, and it is 53km long. You can get to the Mount Arthur track via Cobb valley in Takaka or Graham Valley road in Motueka. Kahurangi is the second largest national park in New Zealand. The Mount Arthur Track is rated at ‘moderately difficult’ and it runs though the limestone and marble country. There are four huts on the Track, and some of them have quite weird names! Balloon hut has 14 bunks in it, Mt Arthur Hut has 8 bunks, Salisbury Lodge has 22, and Myttons Hut only has four bunks! The pathway is mostly unformed, with steep, rough and muddy sections. This track is suitable for people with good fitness levels. Moderate to high level backcountry skills and experience, including navigation and survival skills required. You must have Tramping Boots.

Term Reflection!!!!!

Hi!
In term, I have learned a little bit from the Literacy, a little bit from the Creativity, and a little bit from the Thinking Work!!!!!! I think that this Term's activities were extremely fun!!!!! I hope the next term's activities will be even funner!!!! I have learned heaps from this work!!! I think that the teachers did a good job of this all!! Although I enjoyed all of this work, I am glad of this 2week break! IT WAS AN EXELLENT TIME!! thank you!!!

Tangi

Yesterday, Mum and I came back home, after being in Wellington for three nights after Dad's good friend died. A Tangi is like a funeral, but instead of being sad, and gloomy, there is actually a lot of singing and merriment. When we were in Wellington, every night we got to stay up REALLY late, but I won't say how late, because the teachers might no approve!!! Well anyway, we stayed at a Marae for two of the nights, and one at another friend's place. there was lots of food there, and all the people at the eating place were all talking at the SAME TIME!! It was hard to even understand the person in front of you shouting at the top of their lungs!We had to catch the Ferry at 8.00 in the morning. By the time we got home, I was pooped.

Fence

Mum is tying lots of long manuka sticks together, to make fences for her garden. We are tying them to the outside of her garden to make her garden more sheltered from the wind. Yesterday, we went to get some sticks for her garden. We probably got enough to finish the whole garden yesterday.
On the way back, we went skating on our bottoms in the mud. We had an excellent time sliding down the hill, in the mud! When we got back, Summer and I were absolutely DRENCHED with water. By the time we got back to the house, I was pooped.

Kayaking

Hi! Yesterday, I went kayaking. I took my fishing rod too, just in case I saw some fish. I went over to the other side of the bay where the kahawai usualy are. I didn't see any fish, but just as I was going to cast my line out, a seal came and started eating all of the fish! I waited until the seal went away, because if I caught a fish, the seal might have stolen it.
I saw the seal swim off at a leisurely pace. A few seconds later, it shot off, zig-zagging across the bay. It's speed was amazing! A Kahawai would have had NO CHANCE of surviving an attack like that, unless of couse, it swam into a school of other kahawai. The seal would then be utterly confused and would lose it's prey.
ANYWAY, after the seal had gone away, I cast my line out, and guess what I caught? NOTHING! The fish were probably too worried about being eaten than eating.

Kayaking

Grappeling Hook

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!! Two days ago, I made a big Grappeling hook out of wire. It is good, because it can hook thing really easily.the width is about 10cm, and the height is about 15cm.

Magnets

Hi! I have got two big magnets that are about this long:
[-------------------------]
When you throw them both in the air at the same time in such a way that they hit each other they make REALLY cool sound! It sounds a bit like if you pull a polarfleece jumper off your head it makes noise from the static electricity, but louder.
My magnets are really powerful and can pick up lots of things. My magnets can also stick together THROUGH my fingers! They are not quite stong enough to go through my hand, but it is close.

Sailing

Its been AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and
AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES and AGES since we last went sailing. I REALLY want to go sailing, but Its just too windy or too little wind for a sail. I hope in the next few days, the wind will PERFECT for sailing. I'm REALLY excited about the run on Sunday!

10km run

Hi! On the seventh of August, Mum, Summer, Coral and I are going to go on a 10km run in Blenheim. We are training up at our place on the hills. I wonder how flat it is going to be on the run. I am going to do the run in barefeet, because I don't like running in shoes. (Unless the ground is really cold!)
I am looking forward to the run, I think it will be really FUN!

My Birthday

Last week, on Sunday, I turned twelve! Mum wasn't home, so I got 3 presents. My grandmother gave me the book "Danny the champion of the world", Dad gave me some fishing lure making stuff and Summer gave me a little case full of random stuff like sand-paper and bulbs.

Visiting!!!!!!!!!!!

On the 5th of July, I went to see my best friend, Arved and his german family near Murchison (they speak both German and English). When we were at the gate, we stopped and got out, because the car had to go through a small fjord. Arved, Alexander and Arthur were all waiting at the gate for us to arrive.
When we had got our bags out of the car, Mum drove off to go to Christchurch with Coral, to check out the university there, as she has almost finished school.
At Arved's place, there was a frost every day. Since it was so cold, all the outside taps froze, and the water just refused to come out! All the ponds froze, and one of them was even thick enough to skate on with our gumboots.
On the 6th of July, it was Arved's birthday, and he got lots of presents. One of them was the new Monopoly and we played it that night. The new monopoly is MUCH more complicated than the old one, and is quite challenging. For Arved's birthday, I carved a small giraffe out of wood. Arved also got Ice Age 3 "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" and we watched it 3 times in English and once in German. It was sad when I had to leave on the 16th of July. I wish I could have stayed for half a year!

New term :-(

It is the new term today, and I wish that it was still the holidays! I wonder what this term's topic is? I hope it is something more fun than the Enterprise thingy. I think something like the Stuctures and Mechanisms thingy would be fun. I suppose that I will only get to know the term topic on tuesday, when the Annoucements come up.

Term reflection

I thought this enterprise thingy was quite fun except it became a bit boring at times because there was so much work to do. I thought the muffin bakery and the designing cellphone thingy was awesome because you can do your own things and you can create stuff that looks cool. I wish the holidays would come sooner though!!

Camping in the pine forest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday, Summer, our cousin and I went camping! We walked to the other side of the bay and set up our tent in the pine forest While it was still light, I started to make dinner using a penny-stove (a small tin stove that runs on Methylated Spirits). We had noodles and fish for dinner. It was yummy. We went into the tent to read a bit (as it was getting dark) and Summer went to sleep early. Eventually, I nodded off to sleep as well.
In the morning, I cooked some porridge with the penny stove for breakfast. I was a bit messy, and spilled a bit, but it tasted alright! We ate it in our cups. I hope we can go camping again soon!

Pizza oven

It is sad, because we haven't had the pizza oven for 3weeks now! I hope we will fire up the pizza oven again this weekend, because I can't wait to have our own pizza again. We ate all the bread that we made in it last week and Mum had to make a batch of bread in the oven. I hope we can do LOTS of pizzas!

Sailing with the dolphins!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday, the wind was absolutely perfect for a wind surf, so Dad and I went out on the two windsurfers. We got all the way out of our bay and were sailing among the mussel farms when we spotted some big splashes up ahead of us. Me and Dad went to check them out. The big splashes turned out to be a whole pod of bottle nose dolphins!!!!!!! We shot back into the bay with the dolphins close on our heels (dolphins like to follow boats)to tell the others about them. The dolphins really liked the windsurfers, so they followed us quite shallow. Summer wanted to touch one of them, so she went swimming, but was too slow- the dolphins were already swimming out of the bay again.

Sailing

The day before yesterday, Our cousin, Dad, Summer, & I all went sailing together on our two windsurfers and two P-classes! There wasn't really that much wind and we didn't go very fast, but there was the occasional gust which made us shoot forwards! We had heaps of fun sailing around the bay, and it was with reluctance that we went back in. When we went back in, it was dark, and it was only 6.00pm! I had the last shower, as everybody else was colder than me.

Grinding wheat

Yesterday, I had to grind lots of wheat to make flour. We needed the flour because we wanted to make LOTS of pizzas and bread for the Pizza Oven to cook! We put some salami and pineapple on some of the pizzas, but they were all delicious!

Sunny Day!!!!!!!!!!

Hi, in the last few weeks it has been raining almost non-stop! I suppose that I should be happy, because the hydro needed the rain badly, but I was still glad when the sun came out today. Our solar panels are doing well because it is a very bright day today! After school today, I want to go kayaking.

catamaran!

Yesterday, the water was as flat as glass, so I made the kayak catamaran again! When I had finished, I put a piece of strong wood between the backs of the two kayaks. Then I sat on the wood facing backwards and started paddling with my flippers. Even though it had the drag of two kayaks, I could still paddle the catamaran quite fast!

mud!!

Yesterday, Summer and I went wallowing in the mud in our swamp.
First, we dug a hole in hardish mud about waist deep, then we filled it up with water and more mud and mixed it up. After that, we had a mud fight. We got covered in the mud from head to foot.

Rain

Last night, it absolutely POURED down with rain and it was so loud, that I couldn't sleep very well. I'm a little bit tired this morning, but its not too bad. We only got 5 and a 1/2 millimetres though, which is sad!

Half Marathon

On the 8th of May, Mum walked/ran a half marathon at Saint Clairs Vineyard. Since it was only a half marathon, it was 21kilometres. At the end of the marathon, everyone was given a bottle of wine. Mum felt really good except that her left foot was sore.

Pizza oven!!!!!!!!!!

On the 7th of April, we started to make a pizza oven at our place. We had already made the table for it to go on a couple of years ago. To make the dome shape, we put some clay into half a mussel buoy and we mixed it with sand using our bare feet! We then made the mixed clay into round balls about 10cm in diameter and Dad slapped them onto the table to make the dome. When the dome was dry, we mixed up some more clay and Dad cut a hole at the back of the dome to make the chimney. On Sunday, I fired up the pizza oven for 3hours, while Dad went diving to get some crayfish for the pizza. First, we cooked some pizza, then we cooked the bread and then lastly, the beef casserole.

Pine forest

On Wednesday, Mum, Summer and I went to the pine forest which is 4 kilometres away to go sledding and to make some huts. To make my hut, we gathered up HEAPS of pine needles and we put them all in one ENORMOUS pile. To make the hut bit, we just burrowed out a hole in the pile big enough to fit one person.

Only 1 hour of school per day!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday dad said that we’re only allowed to have one hour of school each. We don’t have very much power so we can’t do very much school – sorry Sandy! because all our battery chargers are broken and also there isn’t enough water for the hydro. We had to eat dinner by candlelight last night and we also had to turn off our fridge because it uses 1 kilowatt of power per day!!! Our phone also is faulty now because its batteries are almost flat so it keeps on getting cut off! The Telecom people are coming tomorrow to fix it.

Kayak Catamaran

On Sunday, Summer and I made a catamaran out of our two kayaks. For the sail, we used a small blue tarpaulin and for the masts we used two aluminium poles.
We sailed really fast, and even though we couldn’t go upwind, we could go across the wind & down-wind!

REAP day

On Tuesday, we had a REAP day at our place. About twenty people came to the REAP day.
In the morning, we all did rope tying and in the afternoon, dad did alternative power with most of the people. I didn’t go, because I still wanted to tie more knots!

Dophins in the bay!!!!!

Hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Monday, we were having lunch, when I spotted some disturbances in the water. Thinking that it was kahawai, I jumped up to look through the binoculars and discovered that they were actually Bottle Nose Dolphins! We went outside to watch the dolphins. There were about 10 of them. Unfortunately, the dolphins went out of the bay quickly.

Best thing in BB this term

Hi,
I think the best thing in Black Board this term was in the first few weeks, when I made a news- paper crane. The most difficult bit was that my crane kept twisting one way all the time, so I had to put up more braces.

Best thing in Black Board this term

Making a model boat

Hi blog.
3 weeks ago, I made a model boat.
First, I found a small pole (70cm long), and sharpened the end to a point. Then I attached the sail and keel. I put some battens in the sail and a lead sinker on the bottom of the keel.
It sails really fast! It is the best model boat I have ever made!

FIRST BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FIRST BLOG!!!
Hi Blog,
I made my learning blog! Finally!
I'll update you later.
from Tasman