OUR SECOND LEISURE WALK FOR THE YEAR
On Saturday 2 May, we headed off on our 2nd walk for the year. Term 1 was so short and hectic we never got to going on two walks for the term, so we decided to get started as soon as possible this term. Our destination this time was Thorps Quarry walk, even though this is not a particularly long walk, it certainly was a challenging one, what with a few hundred steps to climb and climb we did! Puffing all the way!
Here's what Fereni had to say about the day out...
It's that time again, leisure walking time. This time we headed off to Clevedon. There were 6 of us, 2 of whom were new comers to the group.
Once we headed off, from the moment we sat in the van, our mouths never closed. Yes, it was probably all gossip, but busy chatter all the same, we all had so much to say...you wouldn't believe we'd been together at school for the whole week before. When we got to our destination, we quickly put our day packs on and were ready to start. Off we headed to the bridge, built over a little river across from the start of the walk.
Crrnnnch, crrnnch, crrnnch all we could hear was the crunching of our shoes as we moved along the path. Within minutes of starting many of us were tired...if you're wondering why, it was most likely because of ....ALL THOSE STAIRS! Some of us could feel the aching in our calf muscles right from the start, in fact only after tramping up about 15 steps. We trudged along the path and faced the challenging steps to the top, and believe me we were hot, sweating, sweating all over!
Once we reached the top, our temperatures dropped to zero...well, at least that's what it felt like, after being so hot from walking we were exposed at the top and the cold air hit us. The view was spectacular, we could see across to Auckland, including the Sky Tower, over to the Manukau Harbour and around to the Coromandel Peninsula, even though there was a misty rain, we thought the view was truly AMAZING! Unfortunately we couldn't stay too long and before we knew it we were heading down to the reserve, fortunately this was much easier than the steep climb to the summit.
When we reached the bottom we decided to follow another path before leaving. This path led us to a place called Old Thorps Quarry. This was like a secret hide out, with little picnic spots and a refreshing, comforting waterfall. When we read the information on the board we discovered this area was originally a quarry and in around 1916, the natural stone found there, known as Greywacke (pronounced : Grey – Wacky) was used to make local roads and footpaths. In the 1930s the council claimed the area and decided it was to be used for recreation purposes only. The quarry has now been reclaimed and is gradually being returned to a freshwater wetland. This is very important as in New Zealand many wetlands have been filled in and used to build housing on, resulting in much of the natural birdlife, insects and so on having to find new homes and risking some of them becoming extinct.
After a morning of exercise and learning, we made our way back to school, once again chatting all the way. All in all, it was fun and will definitely be a day to remember.
