Yesterday was Sunday Surf Club. My group had to swim out to sea and then swim 200m down the beach.

I thought I couldn’t do. But Nigel was our coach and he encouraged me a lot and I did it. The waves were really big.

You can’t really see me in the waves because we were far away.

My cousin Nigel told everyone about being safe and their activities.

This was my group.

Ohope Beach is really big. It’s a really big sport in NZ.

You can see our group out in the sea in the big waves getting ready for the 200m swim.

We swam in the sea where the waves weren’t breaking.

After the swim we had to learn how to put on our fins on in the sea. But we had to practice first.

Finishing our session. I think dad went to sleep on the beach.

We all had an NZ sausage sizzle and went home.

National Championships

Next weekend some members of the Ohope sea surf rescue club are competing in the National championships. My cousins have qualified for the nationals. They train before school and after school.

My last few days with my cousins Holly, Layla, Dom and Piper

Riding our bikes all the way into town

Riding over the Whakatane river by My cousin’s house.

We had fun diving into the river by the sea.

We looked at the elephant seal across the river

We had an ice cream and rode home

Start of the School Year – School Induction Day in Maori

It’s been a busy time in Whakatane we’ve been cycling into town, swimming, diving, shopping and surf schooling.

Trident High School

I attended the new induction ceremony with the year 9s. The community made speeches in Maori. They sang songs to the teachers about teaching and caring for all the children that started school. It is called Powhiri “pohiddi”.

Maori children attended from another high school and sang a song of thanks to their teacher who was starting at Trident High school.

The teachers at Trident sang to the community. It was all outside and it was very hot.

Then the children met their form teachers, played games and ate lots of melon. and sausages wrapped in bread covered in tomato sauce. It’s called a “sausage sizzle” – New Zealander’s love it. We always eat a Sizzle after Surf school.

The schools corridors are outside.

This place is Wharenui “Faddanewee”. It is outside overlooking the field. That’s where the ceremony was held.

Melon. Lots of melon

My cousin Nigel is called Mr Rowland. He is the head of technology and takes the children on a five week adventure camp to Great Barrier Island. He also does lots of other adventure activities.

This is the school uniform. White shirts and blue shorts. The activities are led by their new teacher and year 13 children.

The printer, plotter cutter for vinyl – cut numbers out of the sticky paper. It was for Nigel’s work benches.

There were lots of people and parents who attended the ceremony.

The headteacher also made a welcoming speech in Maori. The spirits, ancestors, the sky, the sea and the mountains. And then he spoke English and welcomed everyone.

This was the school of whales swimming by the boat. You can also see the volcano in the background.

We think they were short finned pilot whales. The dolphins were having fun and showing off. But the whales were really serious – just concentrating.

The dolphins would go fast, jump, fall over, roll over, zig zag, swim close and pop their head out of the water. And the whales just went straight on at the same speed all of the time – really serious.

The crator

The water in the crator changes colour. At the moment it is green.

The sulphur smell was really strong as you got closer to the crator and it was very hot. We really really needed the gas masks. Dad said he needed a cold drink.

Caitlin showed us the way to the craror. We stopped to look at a fumarole

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumarole

It’s a crack in the Earths crust. Gas and steam shoots out.

You can just see the steam behind us. The fumarole.

We found a crystal sulphur rock it was soft and crumbly.

We got to the crator.

It’s was very hot.

We could only stay by the crator for a few minutes as it was so hard to breathe.

On the way down from the crator we had to drink water from two streams. One was yukki and it came from the volcano and was loaded with iron. The came up through the ground and came from the rain water on the other side of the island. It had iron but was still horrible.

Here we are trying the water.

Dad said he needed a cold drink.

We visited the old sulphur factory. It was fun.

Time to get back to the boat. It was hotter than 30 degrees.

When we got back to the boat we jumped in the volcano sea. The sea

was really blue.

Dad swam. We pushed him off the boat. The water was really warm.

On the way back the skipper spotted a pod of 60 -bottle nosed dolphins.

https://www.newzealand.com/int/article/top-10-bottlenose-dolphin-facts/

The skipper turned the boats engine off and we were in the middle of all the dolphins. Their fin looked like a shark and some were really big – jumping out of the sea and rolling over but didn’t get a photo of that. There were baby dolphins with their moms. The we had a really big surprise. WHALES swam with the boat in a family pid

There are pilot whales at the start of the video and bottlenosed dolphins at the end.

These whales said hello 👍🏽

You can we the blow hole where they breathe.

Here is the family-pod of whales swimming next to the boat.

We ate our dinner watching the dolphins and whales all around the boat. It was exciting.

The adventure to White Island, Whakaari was amazing.

Tomorrow I’m going to do the Maori welcome to Yr 9 students on their first day at high school and see Nigel’s classroom. He’s going to teach me to use a laser cutter. Trident High School, Whakatane, The Bay of Plenty, named by Captain Cook.

About Trident High School

https://www.trident.school.nz/

The corridors are outside 👍🏽

The volcano is 50km or 31 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean.

Captain Cook named it White Island 1st October 1769. But it already had a Maori name, it was called Whakatane which means “Dramatic Volcano”.

Here is the boat that took me, holly and dad to the island. It’s called Peejay IV.

the boat was super fast and went right past Whale Island. Captain Cook thought it looked like a humped back Whale.

Getting for the volcano. We have to wear hard hats because there was a small eruption a few years ago and lots of stones started to fall on people. We were told which rocks to hide behind if there was an eruption.

We had to wear gas masks.

We got on the small boat to take us to the island.

Getting ashore.

Now we’re off to see the bubbling creator. It was getting harder to breathe.

Next – Part two

Did she? Did she not ?

Please tell me what you think I will do? Send a comment. Tell what I should do – comments.

The jumping stations Bungy and Extreme swing.

A young woman took the swing – it drops straight down before it swings.

A young Chinese woman also jumped with the Bungy. She screamed non stop for ages bouncing. If you look at photo you can see her swinging.

I was trying to decide what to do 👍🏽

Looking down at the cliff face and river. The swing ? The Bungy? Which one shall I choose?

So …. I went for a hair cut – it was soooo long – Suzanne styles it for me. BEFORE

AFTER

And … dad nearly fell asleep reading his Captain Cook book.

Now we’re driving back to stay with my cousins in Whakatane.

THE EXTREME SWING OR THE BUNGY ????????

ANSWER

Dad said “that’s a relief” !

I’ll come back with friends when I’m 19 😁 dad said he’d give me the money for the swing and Bungy !

Tomorrow we are going to White Island ( Captain Cook named it that because of the smoke and steam).

We are going with my cousin Holly. It’s a 2 hour boat ride to the volcano. You need to wear gas masks. See how active it really is.

The volcano is erupting a lot, it’s hot and smelly. I’ll blog you tomorrow.

We sailed on a yacht. It’s the only electric sail yacht in NZ

We sailed at two o clock.

It was a bit scary at first

The yacht leaned right over in the wind. The water came on deck.

We got to the Maori carvings. It was calm in the bay. The carvings were made in the 1970s and 1980s to celebrate Maori life and culture.

This carving is 12 meters high. It’s a traditional Maori tattoo and each line tells you about the Maori’s family and ancestors.

There are lots of carvings.

You can see the lizard.

Dad said he needed a cold drink. Instead I made him have a cold swim in the Lake. I jumped in and dad followed. It was really fresh, clear and cold. Me jumping in the lake in slo mo

Then dad jumped in too.

Back on board the yacht

The skipper made dad a cup of tea. And we warmed up.

The skipper let me steer the yacht. When the wind pushed against me I had to push against the wind.

The skipper told us all about the history of NZ. all the first settlers were farmers and people who wanted to look after the land.

You can see the flag on the yacht.

It was a great day. I went with dad for a cold drink. Jerry was playing guitar. We got to know him. He was from Hamilton in NZ. He knew a million songs and just played without stopping.

Tomorrow it’s NZ Bungy jumping and the extreme drop swing 👍🏽

Will she do it ?

We spent the day driving up into the mountains to the active volcano. It is a ski resort in the winter.

https://www.visitruapehu.com/explore/mount-ruapehu/

Dad into the mountains. After 2 hours we got to the Alpine Chateaux Tongariro.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateau_Tongariro

From the Chateaux you can see another of the 3 volcanoes in the mountains.

We carried on up and up into mountains.

Me and dad got to the chair lift but it was closed. The workers are putting Gondolas instead of chairs.

so we never got to the very top. I want to climb to the top – but said we didn’t have right shoes.

Dad let me climb the first bit. But I’ll have to come back to finish. My cousin Nigel said it takes nearly three hours to walk.

There is a glacier in the background. The mountain is 9000 metres high.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Ruapehu

We parked by an Alpine snow plough that is used in the winter.

On the way down we visited Lake Taupo and found huge pumice rock and we checked to see if it would float.

I tested it to see if this giant pummice rock would float in Lake Taupo.

The Lake is as big as Singapore. The eruption that created it was the second biggest in the history of the Earth – the Romans recorded the eruption and it changed the climate for two years. My cousin has cycled around the Lake 4 times. A 160 km distance around the lake.

When got back to Taupo dad said he needed a cold drink and a lie down but I went swimming in the pool … and ten beat him at table tennis 🏓

The backers Lodge was fun.

Later, Dad read his Captain Cook book and I had a cold drink. 👍🏽👍🏽

www.google.com/search

we are just leaving the back packer lodge for Ruapehu. We can take ski lift to the top of the mountain.