Wellington 2019

 8 adults and 48 of the most amazing students ever,  made their way to Wellington this November for Marama's capital city adventure.




It was an absolute privilege to explore Wellington City with these enthusiastic, encouraging and energetic year 7 and 8 leaders. 

 Some of us got to feed the giraffes by hand at Wellington Zoo! 

The keepers were really informative and we all got a quick tour around the zoo before we were left to explore on our own.

The chimpanzees were a clear favourite.







Getting harnessed up for Adrenalin Forest was definitely a highlight for a number of Marama students.


A small group of our students made it through level 4 and 5 of the course - which was unbelievably high! 
We know you would have gone higher still, if level 6 had been open, unfortunately the wind was blowing too strong!


                     

                     

                     

The people you see up high are climbing level 5!

 Grace, Jack, Ariana, Max and Annabel were our high fliers! You were all so amazing!

          

We rode the cable car to the Space Place observatory for a fascinating introduction to the Apollo space missions, as well as learning about stars and planets visible from earth.

                

The lights in the tunnel were a highlight for us all!

The amazing race on Wednesday morning was aptly named, it was AMAZING!

 

We explored all over Wellington, from Oriental Bay right the way around to The Railway Station. Grant and his team made it back in record time to claim the tile of  "Amazing Race Champions 2019".

            



                 

Weta Workshops was our Wednesday Afternoon adventure, it was fantastic!

                 

                

We were well and truly entertained by our guides who were incredibly knowledgeable, creative and experienced in the world of design and dreaming - that is Weta Workshops.

We also got to meet a past pupil of Upper Moutere who now works in the Visual Arts department of Weta - awesome!

Genghis Khan was our dinner venue for Wednesday night and it was incredible. Bowl after bowl of delicious, fresh and healthy meat and vegetables, were cooked for our eating pleasure! 4 bowls of dinner was the record - Wow!

Thursday morning was the start of a very full day. We split into groups and explored more that Wellington has to offer.

Our parliament visit was a treat as both groups got to meet Trevor Mallard and have a tour through his apartment and offices, and one group even got to see our Prime Minister on the way to the debating chambers.

Capital E was also on our timetable for Thursday. Again, we were in two groups and we explored both OnTV and Media Lab.

  

OnTV allowed us opportunities to explore and experiment with all roles associated with television and live production. We wrote our own script and presented "Good Morning Moutere". It was a very cool experience, allowing us to participate on or off screen. Each of us had a specific role.

             

  We also learnt to use green screen. :)

A delicious dinner from Flying Burrito Brothers ended our camp evening meals, but camp was not over as we made our way to Circa Theatre. A hilarious adventure with Alice in Wonderland greeted us as we were treated to a very witty, and slightly cheeky retelling. 



A good pantomime is not complete until the audience has been dragged up onto the stage! Some of us enjoyed that part a little more than others.

Julieanne and Heidi continue to be amazed by your brilliance Marama - you truly are the most incredible young leaders. We were so proud to lead you on this adventure! Ngā Mihi Nui!