We broke down Written by Christina Appleby-Lambert

“Christina close the door.” Whaea Oronsay yells. “I can’t the labels are in Chinese.” I moaned. “Just push both buttons and see what happens.” Whaea Oronsay angrily replies. I pushed both buttons but nothing happened. Whaea Oronsay stomps over and tries to close the door, but she was unsuccessful. Then Miss Lokeni calmly walks over and starts yanking and pulling the door. After a couple of minutes the door finally closes. “YAY.” We all happily cheered.

Whaea Oronsay starts up the bus, but Brmmm put put is all we hear. Whaea Oronsay repeatedly tries but each one is unsuccessful. All of us worried girls had to patiently sit in the bus, while Whaea Ata and Mrs Lokeni called Matua Dudley to tell him that our bus won’t start.

When Matua Dudley and the boys arrived, all of us girls had to exit the bus. When Matua Dudley found out what happened straight away he pulled out his phone and rang AA insurance and told them what had happened.

One hour had slowly passed and the man still wasn’t here. So Matua Dudley made the decision that the girls will travel the rest of the way with the boys on their bus. At first we were alright with it but when we took one step into their bus we changed our minds. Their bus was absolutely disgusting. There was rubbish everywhere, it was stuffy and stink and there was bubble-gum on the roof.

Finally the man arrived in a yellowish car. The man looked Indian but sounded like a Maori. He was wearing dark blue overalls with brown work boots. The man jumped out of his car and started talking to Matua Dudley and Whaea Oronsay. After they had finished talking the man suggested that we push start the bus. So Callan, Fasi, Johnathan, Matua Desmond and some of the boys lined up behind the heavy blue Clendon park bus. They began to run and push with all of their might. The boys stopped and the bus was still going. “Yay the bus is fixed.” All of us happy girls said while we ran out of the bus like wild animals. Once we were all out of the horrible boy’s bus, we all safely headed back to our bus. When we were all in Whaea Oronsay wasted no time and zoomed of to our next stop, beautiful Taumarunui. 

Haerenga ki Ruapehu Maunga

Last week some of us were very lucky to participate in an awesome learning opportunity. We headed down to the beautiful area of Tuwharetoa to see some of it's greatest treasures.

As soon as we saw Ruapehu maunga in the distance, we were so excited to touch snow for the first time. Some of us built snowmen, slid down little hills of snow and threw our hand made snow balls at each other.

Another highlight was relaxing in the steaming hot pools not far from the mountain. For some of us the temperature was too hot so we had to have a quick cold shower and then jump back into the pool.

We also got the opportunity to ride on Whaea Ata's aunty's horses, Belle and Ben. They were both really calm horses and lovely to ride. 

Thank you to all the teachers who brought us down here and helped out with the trip, it was awesome!

P.s. If you want to know any funny stories, come and see us.