Tōtara Park trip
On Tuesday 31st July,2024,The Gardens School’s Intermediates went to Tōtara park on an Educational basis. This trip was an amazing opportunity for the Kāhu students(including me!) to explore our new topic for LAUNCH – Kaitiakitanga —safety of the planet- plastic and pollution etc. When we  went to Tōtara park, all I saw was trees, and trees and trees and trees. It was a decent experience but still cool. I liked the stairs since they were made on a mountain(I think). We took a bush walk when we went to Tōtara park. I found BARELY any flowers which was surprising. My shoes were so muddy even mud itself were less muddy than my shoes.

After an hour of walking around Tōtara Park we went to the start of Tōtara park(where we came from) and had a rest, ate our morning tea, and went for another 1 hour walk. On our second walk, we went the same track as before. This time we found a lot more than before. On our first walk we found this wooden pole broken in half and inside the pole was a “California Turret Spider”. Sadly we didn’t get to see the actual spider since it was so dark where we were looking. When I say we, I mean Me, Jeevanjot, and Gurfateh. We also found a relaxing lake which was very cool. And once we were back at the start we walked all the way back to The Gardens School.

Botanic Gardens Trip

On Tuesday 6th August 2024, The year 7 and 8’s of The Gardens School went to Botanic Gardens! One of those Year 7’s was me! Exactly 1 week ago we also went to Tōtara Park. Now, you maybe asking why are we going here and at Tōtara Park?? Wrll the anwser to that is our LAUNCH topic—Kaitiakitanga. Kaitiakitanga means caring for our planet. We also call this topic “Guardians of the GalaxSEA”! Funny right! The way we say Galaxy is GalaxSEA. This is because we are focusing on the litter and plastic in the ocean. We went to Botanic Gardens on an Educational Purpose to look at the “Storm Water Trail” and we had an fun Scavenger hunt! The purpose of the scavengar hunt was to find Plants starting from A all the way to Z. This was a fun challenge and we went through a forest which was also cool.Over all I enjoyed this experience and I think everyone else did too.

Comparing

When I went to Tōtara Park, I was like, “meh” overall. But when I went to Botanic Gardens, my mouth was completely open the entire time. We went through the Rose Garden and it was so colourful! It was surely one of the best experiences I have had throughout they year. When we went to Tōtara Park, we split up into half of a Hapori, and another half. So that we means we went with around 74 students. We used the seek app to take photos of Plants and Seek would tell us the name of it! We also used it when we went to Botanic Gardens. Botanic Gardens was a lively experience and very interactive. Unlike Tōtara Park where we barely met any people. Overall I say that Botanic Gardens was the best one.