Tuesday 10 April 2018

NZL - Kumara Trip

Yesterday (Monday April 9th) all of year nine went to Kumara. Kumara is a small little town that you pass through on the way to Christchurch. It is situated approximately 24 km away from Greymouth. We went there to do a few activities that are about the history of Kumara. Kumara was originally a gold mining town that people from all over the world came to get gold from. Especially the Irish, about half to population of Ireland came over to New Zealand because they wanted to get some gold. Another thing is that at that time in Ireland there was a famine. All the potatoes were going black so that they could not be eaten.

Activities
We arrived at the Kumara hall at about 9:30 and got straight into the activities. There are four activities we had to complete throughout the day. The first one we had to do was a walk to Londonderry rock which is a few minutes outside of Kumara. We had to do a ten minute bushwalk to get there. Londonderry rock is a massive rock that fell down a cliffside in the 1800s. It was named Londonderry rock because one of the miners that was working on the cliffside came from Londonderry which is a place in Ireland.

The second activity we had to do was a dramatization in the old historic swimming baths just outside of Kumara. We had a look around and made groups to do a small play that was based off of a poem. We chose a poem called "Blackjack Joe" It was about a man called Mike Mccool who had to beat up this mean old guy that was terrorising and harming irish folk in the town. We did a pretty good interpretation of it and I'm pretty sure we one. Others did a poem about the grey river and a story about the Banshee. The Banshee is an Irish tale that is about a woman that would wail really loud to warn others that death was coming. After that activity we had lunch.

The third activity was behind the Hall on a small, damp, paddock. This activity consisted of three smaller activities we had to complete. The first activity we did was called river crossing. We split into three teams and had to make it from one set of cones to another set of cones which was about 20 metres away. We had 6 little rubber/plastic pads and a plank of wood. There were 8 people in our team and we came last. We still got a lolly though so it was okay.

The fourth and final activity was a history activity. A man dressed as Richard seddon came into the hall and talked to us for a while. Then we had to split into teams of about 3 or 4 and got handed a piece of paper with some questions on them. We then had to go to the place in Kumara where the info panels are and read them to answer the questions. that we had been given on the piece of paper. It was quite fun and we got to hold Mr Seddons gold piece that was on his waistcoat. Apparently gold is 17 times heavier than water! After that activity we went back to school and then we all went home.

I had a relatively good time and it wasn't as terrible and as i thought it was going to be.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank-you for your comment.