Our Outdoor Education Experience at the Auckland Botanic Gardens

We finally arrived!

After a long bus ride we hopped off the bus to find ourselves at the Auckland Botanic Gardens.

As part of our Energy inquiry we are learning about living in the great outdoors without electricity.

We had a quick morning tea and afterwards had a discussion about how to keep ourselves safe during our stay.

We walked through the gardens to a tree lined base camp. At base camp we were organised into groups and met the Auckland City Council Co-ordinators.

Auckland City Council Coordinator Susie, shows us the 'bushman's friend' plant!

We did different activities in our groups. The activities were orienteering, pitching tents and cooking sausages, and a tramp. Tramping was fun. We learnt how to read a map correctly and find our way around the bush. Cooking sausages was cool. We learnt how to cook food safely in the outdoors.



Mr Niehaus showed us how to use the maps to find the flags.



But, I think orienteering was everyone’s favourite! We got to run around in small groups using a map to find flags. Orienteering taught us how to get to a destination without a trail and to look out for key features that are on the map.





Cooking yummy sausages outdoors.



I’m pretty sure everyone learnt at least one new thing on our trip and I’m definitely sure that everyone enjoyed it too!   

By Emily Beach, Year 7