A group of Kaikoura secondary school students took “outdoor education” to a whole new level in late September.

As a part of a post-earthquake initiative, facilitated by Sport Tasman alongside Whenua Iti Outdoors, seven Kaikoura High School pupils spent four days rafting the Clarence River.

They teamed up with a Whenua Iti tutor, a Kaikoura HS teacher and his partner, plus three guides from Clarence River Rafting to paddle three rafts down the river from inland North Canterbury, near Jacks Pass, to the coast in southern Marlborough.

The group began rafting at 11am Monday and got off the water at 3pm the following Thursday, having camped for three nights on the banks of the river.

Ross Morton, safety and programme manager at Whenua Iti, a provider of outdoor activities based near Motueka, said the trip would normally take around five days. “They managed to cover the whole distance in just three days of rafting which is a bit of an epic actually.

“The Clarence experience is just one of those quintessential New Zealand wilderness adventures – it’s incredible. You are spending long days on the river then you are wild camping – using bush ovens to roast dinners and stuff at night.”

Ross said one of the challenges of doing the trip in September was the risk of being hit by cold southerly storms and this group didn’t miss out. “You can end up in a challenging situation and that is exactly what happened … a big southerly came through, there was snow to low levels … it makes this epic adventure even more epic.”

“The students coped remarkably well. Everyone had a great time.”

He said handling the teamwork required, especially in trying weather conditions, plus the resilience and tenacity to get through long days and a heavy workload, would serve the students well. 

The rafting trip is just one part of the school’s concentrated 2018 outdoor education programme which also involves one four-day senior bush camp, four sea kayaking training days, one four-day sea kayaking expedition in the Marlborough Sounds and a four-day waka ama expedition in the Abel Tasman.

Anthony Wood, outdoor education teacher at Kaikoura HS, who accompanied the students down the Clarence, said the trip was hugely valuable as a leadership exercise. “It was a really special experience. The students that went on the trip were young leaders who will be coming through in the next couple of years at the school. There was a lot of adversity for them, in terms of weather, and they did really well to be self-dependent, fight against the odds and make an awesome trip out of it.

“What the trip provides is isolation – an opportunity for a group of people to be out of their comfort zone and also create their own environment … they have no option but to function as a team … that’s the real advantage.”

He noted that while he and the guides took care of camp organization on the first night, after that the students took over, running the camp and setting up the rafts. “It was really cool, they did very well at that,” Anthony added.

A Kaikoura Sport and Recreation Leadership Team was established in early 2017, made up of representatives from council, community, Te Runanga o Kaikoura and Sport Tasman. Their challenge is to keep sport and recreation running in a post-disaster environment, and to build for the future.

The team felt there was a demand for sport to be given a special place in the recovery effort and they enlisted Sport Tasman’s help to work with the high school on an outdoor education plan.

“Sport Tasman have been the broker. They found the funding - $65,000 worth – and $65,000 worth of programmes are being delivered to our students through Whenua Iti,” explained Kaikoura High School principal John Tait.

He is sold on the concept, which aims to equip students with the skills and judgement to be capable of operating independently in the outdoors.

“You can’t do it from inside the classroom,” said John. “You don’t get your heart and soul into it from inside the classroom, your head gets there, but not the rest of you.”

“It’s one of those post-earthquake initiatives that will help students in their life balance,” he added.

Written by Peter Jones, Sport Tasman

Article added: Wednesday 10 October 2018

Photo supplied by Whenua Iti Outdoors