On Tuesday 30th July me and my entire hapori (the year seven & eights Went on a long walk at tōtara park for 2 HOURS it felt like 4 days to be honest the only way I got the walk was because I had both my friends walking with me on the walk to tōtara park we were told to say in our class groups so I wasn’t with my friends but it didn’t really bother me that much since the walk to tōtara park was a short one.
Once we got there we had to sit down and wait for the teachers to explain the rules. They also mentioned an app called seek by inaterlist. It’s an app that identifies plants, trees, bugs and animals. We had to use that app to identify 5 or more plants, trees, bugs and animals. Our teachers asked if anyone had to go to the bathroom before we started. After everyone was done we began our walk. It was freezing cold outside so I put on my jacket. By the time my friends were already next to me we opened our iPads to go on seek by inaterlist (seek for short) we were scanning plants left and right. Some of them were dead. The track was super muddy. I brought spare shoes but they didn’t survive that walk.
30 or so minutes into the walk was morning tea and both my friends were super mad when we found out that we would eat right back where we started. Around this time we stopped using seek. Everyone just did a lap around the place although it was expected I had a snack and played on the playground and went back to walking. When I’m at school morning tea seems so short but when you’re at tōtara park with muddy shoes and sore legs that little break was amazing but soon it came to an end and it was back to walking. Me and my friends had a separate little group we were at the back back of everyone there was still a teacher behind us since we were separated into two big groups and the teacher behind us was the leader of the second group but she was far behind and when there were to paths we has to yell out and listen to our teachers tell us to go left or right.
An hour later we arrived on this big grass patch. It was beautiful. Our group had stopped for a few minutes to play on it. Some people had so much energy that they were running around. On it we had to go up the grass patch and back into a muddy track. Now all that was left was to get back where we started. Around this time I couldn’t feel my legs at all. We weren’t going back the way we came otherwise that would take us an hour and thirty minutes so we took a shorter route. It was still thirty minutes but it was shorter.
When we only had 15 minutes left to finish the walk l saw that green patch AGAIN I thought we were going back but we just did another round of the place
I was so tired and they tricked me. I thought we we’re going back to school. 15 more minutes passed and we finally left tōtara park. The most dreadful part of it all was the walk back to school. I couldn’t feel my legs, my shoulders were aching because of my heavy bag and my hands were still cold. But we all made it back to school alive.
Aside from all that I genuinely had fun on this walk I got to spend a lot of time with my friends and a lot of laughter came along. I also got to explore a lot of tōtara park, all of it I hadn’t seen before. I saw the walk as a nice change of pace from my usual routine at school. So I’m really grateful for this trip.