William Pike Challenge
Parent Information
A HUGE thank you to Roofscape for your support of the William Pike Program 'Pikelets'.
2021
Rangitoto Island
On Thursday 13th May, at 7.30am, the Pikelets began their second amazing adventure, climbing Rangitoto Island!
The journey to the island was long and included a train and ferry ride, which was also new and exciting for many of our students.
Once on Rangitoto, We explored some of the information boards and then made our way towards to summit. The trek should have been about an hour but many of our pikelets smashed it - making it to the top in under 40 minutes.
Plenty of time was had for lunch and taking in the views of the city and the massive crater left from the eruption.
Rangitoto Island has lots of cool shelters from the War which the students enjoyed exploring, as well as the Lava Tunnels which wound their way under parts of the island. Back down on the coast we explored the rock pools and walked the path to view the bach's (some which are still used today).
Some quotes from our Pikelets
"The hike made my legs and feet ace a lot. We saw some amazing old rocks that probably been there for a very long time." - Kade R
"The ferry was my favourite part. After the ferry, we climbed the island. It was very hot but the way down was easy." - Connor R
NIKAU CAVES
Our First Adventure as William Pikers (Pikelets), was to the Nikau Caves. This challenge pushed people on different levels; darkness, closed in environment, animals and insects that live in caves, dealing with being wet and dirty and more.
The adventure started with a short walk through the paddock to the cave entrance. Carefully making our way into the slippery cave each group had to help each other to make their way over the rough terrain, looking at not only where their feet were going but also their heads and hands so as not to accidently damage the cave.
We learnt about the cave formations, flora and fauna of the area and how to work as a team. All the parent helpers reported high levels of teamwork and communication throughout the trip.
Our students were well behaved, asked great questions to their guides and showed all our school values. Well Done Pikelets!
Some of the Pikelets thoughts
"At first it was scary but the further we got in the easier it was to move further. Athal our guide said "turn your torches off and look up" there was glow worm i never knew they had a string going down though." - Summer H
"It was amazing the stalagmites and Stalactites were thousands of years old and they were so cool. One point of the caving we had to go under a huge rock that had fallen off the ceiling a while ago, and all that was holding it up was it was on the edge of another rock and if we bumped the rock it might have fallen on top of us. It felt short but we got out and had to walk 1km back to the cafe." - Sienna D
Unfortunately there are no cameras allowed in the caves but click here to see some images or to book a tour for yourself! http://nikaucave.co.nz/