Whitianga Beaches!

For about the past two weeks I have been in the Coramandel. I have been staying at this place called Whitianga. During me and my family's stay at Whitianga, we have been to lots of diferent beaches. The ones I talk about below are; Hot Water Beach, Hahei Beach, Lonely Bay and Simpsons beach (where we were staying)

Simpsons Beach

The bach we were staying in was literally 10 meters from Simpsons Beach. Every morning the sun came up in front of our house. Gracefuly, the golden, warm, bright rays filled our lounge each morning. At Simpsons Beach we went swimming most days, kayaking almost every day, and fishing every now and again. 

Hot Water Beach

Hot Water Beach was a stunning experience. We arrived at the steaming sand with our shovels and spades. Hot feet told us we were at the right spot. We dumped our towels and bags under a shady pohutahkawa tree, found a spot, then started digging. Slowly we formed a family sized pit/spa. After a while we realised that the water was getting too hot to relax in, so we made some smaller ones nearer to the sea. Finally we had finished our pools. Tiredly, we relaxed in the hot, spring water, soaking up the sun for hours.  It was confusingly amazing to be able to sit in a natural spa about 4 meters away from the ocean. By lunch time the beach was a mass of hot muddy puddles. People swarmed the beach like moths to a lamp. By the end of my time at hot water beach I was as pink as Pepa Pig.

Hahei Beach

Hahei still had a fair amount of people at it but much less than Hot Water Beach.  The water was so clear that I could see all the way past my toes, and to the sea floor when I swam out past my depth! I also liked relaxing on the sand and eating my ice cream. (Ice creams were also a definate plus at Hahei.)

Otama Beach

To my surprise, the sand at Otama was sqeaky just like at Australia! I did some research and found out that the sand squeaks because each grain of sand is so finely rounded and sphere like that it is the perfect shape to squeak when they rub together. So when you walk on the sand the sand, particles rub together making the sand squeak. I liked Otama beach because it had a rope swing that I could play on.  But the squeaky sand made me miss australia 😢. The water at Otama wasn't as nice as the other spots though because it was a windy day when we went and the water was choppy. Again with the wind, I didn't enjoy all the sand blowing around when I was relaxing on my towel.

Lonely Bay

Lonely Bay was by far my favorite beach. It was practically deserted. The clarity of the water was insane! Big rocks poked out of the water like mini islands that we could jump off into the water. The beach was small and sheltered, and the sun shone the whole time we were there. Lonely bay was like our own little slice of paradise.

Here are some photos of SOME of the beaches because I didn't take photos at some of them.

 

    

Cherub Acronym

A couple weeks ago I did a chapter chat activity on The Recruit. I'm doing The Recruit as my chapter chat this term because I'm on holiday and I'm not able to get my hands on a copy of the book my class is reading. Luckly the year 7&8 chapter chat book was The Recruit and my brother just happened to have taken it on holiday with him. So I am doing The recruit as my chapter chat book this term. The Recruit is a part of the series CHERUB. But in the series it never says what CHERUB actually stands for. In this activity I had to do an acronym for CHERUB. Here is a screenshot of my work. By the way, it took alot of reaserch to get this acronym.

















Here is an explanation of this acronym.
Charles Henderson is the founder of the orgonisation CHERUB. Henderson Boys is another series which is set before cherub was created.  At the end of the book Eagle Day (which is part of the Henderson Boys series) you find out that charles henderson is starting somthing called Espionage Reasearch Unit B. Therefore CHERUB stands for Charles Hendersons Espionage Reaserch Unit B

Timestables.com

About 3 weeks ago my class started using Timestables.com again. I havent used timestables.com for ages but then my teachers set it as a priority for this term. I only just thought of posting this on my blog, so sorry it wasn't posted 3 weeks ago.


NONE of my progress saved from erlier this year because I think I got another password and username. So I had an emty trophy cabnet and NO diplomas. So I had to start all over again!

After about a week of perseverance I had filled my whole trophy cabnet. I had a diploma for each timestables bundle* (*1-12x tables) and gold medals for all the other timestables test. I also had my big and little diploma. Here's some photos of my MOOLA. (Right)

Hamilton Gardens

Last weekend my family and I went to hamilton Gardens. Hamilton Gardens is a huge area of land dedicated to big amazing gardens that look like they belong in a palace! Each garden is unique and was built/grown acording to a theme. My favorite one was the Italian garden.

When I was at the Italian garden I noticed tht they had put white-ish/ cream /light browny looking small stones on the garden paths to make It look authentic. The Italyion garden had 2-3 meter squares with short shaped hedges around the outside of each one. On the inside there were flowers and flat scolpted concrete paterns.

It also had a big water foutain in the middle souronded by 4 lions. The fountain had water comming out the top, and the lions had water comming out of their mouths. The lions and fountain were inside a small circular pool. It was seperated from four bigger, almost square, pools that each had a small bite shaped quater circle cut out of one corner, so that the circle pool fit in the center of them.

At the end of the garden there was a cool, old-time looking building with big pillars and a passage leading through to the other side of the building. The other side was amazing! It was a shady balcony with a spectacular veiw of the Waikato River! 

Here is some photos of some of the gardens...

Here is a link to a cool photo of the Indian Garden. Scroll down past the first photo. Then look for the next one. 

King Of The Mountain.

This is a maths thing that my class had to do. The layout is like a mountain, which is why I call this activity "King Of The Mountain". It is actually called times tables mountain but that sounds kinda lame, so I renamed it. My teacher reckoned I could do the mountain in under three minutes and she was obviously right. So I set myself another challenge of trying to get under TWO minutes on my next attempt. Here's the results...


I only just completed the my challenge with a time of 1 minute 57 seconds only 2 seconds and 46 milliseconds and I would have failed! Here is the evidence. It's a screenshot of the timer when I stopped it.

Halloween Storybird Assignment

This is my halloween Storybird poem. In this Storybird I flicked through the picture backgrounds until I found one that was more my style and that I liked. Then I pieced together my poem. I did a bit of mix and matching with my words and sentences trying to find the best fit. Because there is selection of words to chose from, (I couldn't just type whatever, I had to pick out of the words that were there) I had to think about trying to tell whoever was reading the poem, what was going on, without actually making full sentences. (If you get what I mean.) Anyway, here is my poem. Enjoy!

Boiling Furious

This is my writing sample. The brief for this writing sample was "describe a time when your actions spoke louder that your words". So I wrote this fictional story. Enjoy!

Boiling Furious

Boiling Furious. That's how I was feeling. All It took was 1 slap across the face and I was without dinner for a night. I couldn't get to sleep with all these hateful emotions stuck in my head. This is a story of how I got into this mess.

It was a scorching summer afternoon. After a long hard working day of school, I was dying to get home. I raced home up the road and along the footpath on my bike.

   As I pulled up the driveway on my bike all I could think about was the ice block I had been saving.   "Icy cold lemonade flavor, mmmmm" Quickly after parking my bike I made a beeline for the freezer.

That's when it hit me. Sitting soaking up the sun, licking my lemonade ice block was atawhai! Instantly, my face screwed up. It turned as red as a tomato. I was a volcano about to erupt. My face told all the emotions I was feeling. Storming toward her, I slapped her right across the face. It was the kind of slap that left a mark.

So that's how I got here. Sulking on my pillow. Awake at night with an empty stomach. Flooded inside with all these emotions. Hate, sickening jealousy, anger. But most of all I just felt Boiling Furious!

The End

STRAYA

Today I got back from STRAYA at 1am. During my time There I visited lots of cool places. I figured out that the gold coast (where I was staying) is about 3 hrs ahead of nz time which explains why I got back so late. Anyway I have a lot to share about aussie down below.

The Arrival
As I walked out of the plane I felt instant change. The air was boiling and thick. I felt like I had just applied a centimeter of warm sunblock to my whole face.We caught an uber to our "hotel" but when we got there we realised It was actually a resort! When we asked for our key the receptionist just gave us 3 cards. We figured that we had to swipe a card over the scanner on our door for it to unlock. When we came inside our apartment thing we found that there were ceiling fans so we had those going all day and night. As we went exploring we found our resort had many exciting features. It had a cinema, its own little waterpark, golf, a tennis court, heaps of pools and spas, a restaurant and an arcade!

Dreamworld & Whitewater world

                       Dreamworld

On Thursday and Monday we went to Dreamworld and Whitewater World which our resort provided free 7 day tickets to. Me and my brother went on this crazzy-as ride called the giant drop. Apparently it's the tallest free fall ride in the world at 115m tall. It said on this sign that when you drop down you're going 119 km per hour. Here's how the ride went. Me and my brother climbed into the seats and the safety bar thing came down over our shoulders. Quickly, our seats started climbing up the giant pole. Finally it came to a stop at the top. We were as still as a statue at the top for about 15 seconds. But that made it so much freakier because it gave you more time to think. Suddenly, without warning, we plummeted in our seats to the ground. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I found this image (left) of the giant drop to show how big it is. (But it wasn't  my photo) This was by far my favorite ride.






No other Photos from Dreamworld: I was too         busy having fun all day

White Water World

White Water World is the water park side of Dream World;  it has lots of fast fun and freaky slides. The most scary ride was definitely the 'Wedgie'. This is what happened on the Wedgie. I stepped into a small tube that wasn't quite vertical and had a diameter of about 1 ft. Then I (still standing and leaning against the side of the tube) crossed my feet and put my hands on my head. Closing the tube door, the ride operator talked through a speaker, he said "3, 2, 1 Wedgie!" Suddenly the floor I was standing on disappeared from under me! Shooting straight down the tube, I got water sprayed in my face. My mind was being flooded by so many thoughts. "I can't breath!" "I can't see!" "My back burns!" "This is so fast!" "Why did I do this?!" Before I could think any further, I burst out the end of the slide and hit a barrier of water. There was an enormous splash, and I was stopped instantly. It took a few moments for me to realise I was at the end of the ride. In all, the whole ride only took like 6 seconds! That goes to show how fast it actually goes. Red burn/scratch marks were left on my back from that ride, but they didn't sting for too long. (No photos from our trip to Whitewater World. My camera ISN'T waterproof)

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary 

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is this zoo kinda place that we went to. It had lots of different kinds of animals. My favorite ones were the Koalas, Red Pandas, Kangaroos, Crocodiles/Alligators and Snakes. Fortunately, my aunty gifted me, my brother and my sister all $100 each for spending in Aussie, so I spent most of that money on getting pictures of me close up with some furry/scalie friends.

This is me with Kangaroos. (These photos are actually from Dreamworld, but they had the same thing at Currumbin. My camera just went flat  when I was there). They were in a special spot where anyone could go over to pat them. (ie: I didn't have to pay.)







These photos were professionally taken at Currumbin Wildlife Park. They are of me and my brother with a cute little crocodile. And me and my sister with a black-headed python (:

When the crocodile's handler came over and gave it to us for the photo, he told us to hold the neck, belly and tail. After the photo I had a good look at the crocodile. It had teeth like a razor saw, and it's mouth curved up making it look like it was smiling. When I was at the crocodile talk, the lady said a big 5 meter croc (like the one they had in the enclosure) can crush a water buffalo's skull in its jaws, with the same force that you would squash a grape between your fingers. Which shows how powerful they actually are.

Holding this snake was a very queer feeling like slime, its scaly skin felt wet but was completely dry. Also It was surprisingly heavy, and across my neck and through my hand, I could feel the snake's thick, scaly skin sliding. The feeling of holding a moving snake is like nothing I had ever felt before. (If you haven't already) I highly recommend trying it yourself.

This photo is from Dreamworld as well because for the koala holding at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary  you had to be 12yrs+ so I just got mine at Dreamworld for a bit more money. But it meant that I couldn't get a digital copy, and I had to take a photo of my photo. So that really sucked because it makes my photo look really bad quality and all fuzzy.

Holding a koala was the most a thing ever. It was so cute and cuddly. It's fur was extremely soft. When it's handler gave it to me for a hold it latched right onto me and just carried on eating it's gumtree leaf. Something I couldn't help but notice when I was cuddling this koala,was the overpowering aroma, stinkity stank of sap.

This experience for me was a must have when I went to Aussie so I'm glad I paid extra to hold the koala.

Skypoint Observation Tower (The Q1)

Skypoint is like Aussie's Sky Tower. As the 25th tallest building in the world, it measures 335 meters tall. Sky point is located in Surfers Paradise and is sometimes called the Q1. Something I found really strange about Surfers Paradise, is that they have massive skyscrapers right on the beachfront! Here is some pictures of the view. In this photo (left) Skypoint (The Q1) is the tallest building in the middle. 

Bush Walking

Kia ora. Yesterday me, my cousin Jett, and my family went tramping. The track we chose was in the Orongorongo valley in Rimutaka forest park Wellington. Our track took us to the orongorongo river and back (10kms).  Although very long and tiring, the walk was made a bit easier by the fact that dad decided to bring some delicious m&m's chocolate. Luckily mum brought her phone so I could take some photos.

This is me winding a information box thingy. When I wound the handle it made the information box talk about birds. There was three windy boxes. This one was about kiwis. The other thing it did was when I pressed the buttons on top of the box it played a soundtrack of its birds call. There was a Kiwi, a Grey Warbler, a Tui, and a Whitehead.

While we were walking we played spottie dorito. Spottie dorito is a game that me and my friend Obe made up at year six camp. How it goes is you have to do is spot the doritos that show the way to go on the walking track when you see them you say "spottie dorito". One dorito = 1 punch. (like Spotto/ yellow car) This is what a spottie dorito looks like.

This is us at the midway swing bridge. "Midway", meaning halfway from the carpark to the river.

When me, my brother Isaac, my sister Atawhai, and my cousin Jett got to the bridge we went to the middle and jumped up and down. The bridge was really bouncy and we stayed on it for a good few minutes. The swing bridge ended up being one of my favorite parts of our walk. Here is a picture of me and my family at the swing bridge.

Finally we got to the river. There was a nice dry patch of stones that we went over to have a rest and something to eat. By the way, my Nan made some lit as sandwiches. They were stacked with egg and salami and salad and lots more. This is us just chilling on the rocks.

My next post will probably be about STRAYA which is where me and my family are going Next.