On the Wednesday the 1st of May, unspeakably early, even before the teachers arrive at school, 25 Geographers left Richmond on their adventure to Wellington. After a bit of a false start on both the bus and the ferry, some students found themselves spending the majority of the ferry crossing doing Mr Kersten‘s infamous multitude of Maths homework. This was while the other stress free students enjoyed watching Tama attempt to show off his charades skills. We arrived at Hotel Waterloo excited to finally get into our rooms and settle down, and to meet up with the Year 13s that had been on the BIO3 trip – taking our group up to almost 40! When we got in our rooms we were surprised to see that our rooms were bigger than expected, with more of us in them than we had bargained for. Our room had eight of us in bunk beds! This might have first seemed like a bit of a shock but meant that we were able to hang out together for longer and connect better with people we might not have necessarily hung out with in the school. Within half an hour of being in Wellington we were assigned with our first task, ―The [not so] Amazing Race‖. We split into teams and frantically ran around the streets of Wellington and the shoreline. It was the first of a full-on few days of activities and also the start of a fair amount of banter between us and also joined in with by the teachers – ―Hey Asterix, what‘s that up there?‖ The data collecting for both year groups was the main focus during the daytime. Year 12‘s focused on processes changing the waterfront and the Year 13‘s had their own topics they were investigating. Despite some of us doing our best to try and get out of our comfort zone and try to ask strangers questions about their usage of the waterfront, some of the group showed they maybe aren‘t as confident as they like to think. Some of us found it too much and were too scared to talk to an old lady drinking a cup of tea on the waterfront. This was not the case for all of us. Some of us were so excited to ask people questions and into getting as much information for our internal as possible that we ended up running alongside with a marathon runner just to get another response. This ended up not only being a good laugh for us but entertaining the teachers as well. The teachers highlights apparently included teaching Ms Butler the difference between a banana and a moon in a way-too-loud-for-the-common-room game of ‗Spot It!‘ and the all too common to be coincidental happenings upon former Garin Geographers (and a few unlucky others) as we wandered the city. When leaving, we found ourselves once again waiting for the trip jester to show up for our scheduled departure. After a quick plan to prank him and hide an entire group of geographers he eventually showed up with a fresh hairstyle and covered in hair clippings. What a time to choose to get a trim! In our spare time we went for a walk up Mt Victoria and once at the top were able to read about the history of the land and how it changed as well as being able to enjoy the great views of the Wellington region and a few good conversations with other tourists on the hill. After stopping for a quick selfie we began to make our way down the hill but it was not long after joking about having to turn around and go back up the hill that Mr Bucknall explained that we might be a little lost. Fortunately for the Geography team they had me to guide them down the track and to freedom. As well as having a laugh and loads of fun we also managed to gain a lot of very useful information that has proven to be very helpful in the writing of our assessment. The trip has given us many great opportunities to further our knowledge and learn and get a head start on a topic for some year thirteen work. Thanks to the amazing teachers who were willing to give up their week to look after a bunch of rowdy students. A big thanks to them for making it all possible, everyone had such a great time and I know that the year 12‘s can‘t wait to do it all over again next year.
